Low-income union members to get free tickets to Gardens by the Bay conservatories
Children of low-income union members under the labour movement playing a board game during a family festive celebration at the Flower Dome, Gardens by the Bay.
SINGAPORE — To spread the Christmas cheer, over 230,000 low-income union members under the labour movement will get complimentary tickets to selected sites at Gardens by the Bay from next January.
Each union member can receive four admission tickets to the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome conservatories.
If each member of a married couple qualifies for the tickets, it means they will receive eight in all.
Announcing this on Wednesday (Dec 19), secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Ng Chee Meng said that the tickets have to be redeemed within six months of the date of issue.
He was speaking at a Christmas celebration organised for some 350 low-income union members held at the Gardens by the Bay.
Currently, the NTUC has some 950,000 union members and 25 per cent of them — or about 237,500 — qualify for the complimentary tickets.
Eligibility is based on a union member's income, but NTUC declined to reveal the cut-off income used to assess whether a member receives the tickets.
For Singapore residents, tickets for the two conservatories cost S$20 for adults, S$15 for senior citizens and S$15 for children between the ages of three and 12.
Mr Fok Hup Seng, a 62-year-old cleaner who is divorced and has a 14-year-old daughter, said that without the complimentary tickets, he would not take his child to Gardens by the Bay.
The bulk of his salary — about S$1,100 — goes towards household expenses and medication as he had recently undergone an eye operation.
He was happy to receive the tickets, saying that he would not have been able to afford the entry fee to the conservatories otherwise.
"That money could be used for other, better things," he said.
His daughter Fok Xin Yi, who is in Secondary 2 and lives with her paternal aunt, said the complimentary passes will give her and her father another activity they can do together.
"We do go bowling or take walks together. So, with the complimentary tickets, there is one more place we can go to," she said.
