And so the cat’s out of the bag, the following 2 ads cost S$490,000 to produce and air..

Issues churning at NUS Business School Derrick A Paulo derrick@newstoday.com.sg

REMEMBER the recent National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School television commercial which claimed that the school is “preferred around the world by tomorrow’s elite” and that Singapore boys are “way too cute”?

It is still making waves — not for the response it drew but for the alleged hurry in which it was commissioned.

The advertisement cost about $490,000 to push out and the question now is whether the tender of competition for it was waived without following university procedures.

Sources say the school’s office of finance and administration initially refused to sign an approval of payment, as there was no issuance of purchase order for the advertisement, and the office was said to have known of the procurement only after the shoot had been commissioned.

Still, the ad agency was under a period contract with the school, and the advertisement and the funding for it — which came from profits from the school’s executive education programmes — were authorised by NUS Business School dean Chris Earley.

In two emails to staff, he wrote: “I think now is the time for us to proceed and take the gamble on it. It’s a lot of money but I anticipate this won’t be an issue for us.

“Given the time urgency, I think we just need to proceed and then I can apologise later for mistakes … With regard to procurement procedures, we just need to go ahead on my authorisation and I’ll write a note explaining why we had to act as quickly as we did.”

When contacted by Today, Prof Earley said: “All I did is I approved in-principle the ad itself … As the dean, I’m not actually responsible or aware of the operational details.

“We needed to get the ads out very quickly in time for the final push for enrolments to the BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration programme) … and the good news is our enrolments are at record levels.”

The enrolments for this year closed on June 5. The ad first aired on May 21.

How procedures for the ad were handled is now part of a wider internal investigation by NUS into corporate governance issues at its Business School.

What is 490K however, when the admin makes savings in the following ways?

We reuse all the balloons here, or at least ppl are told that these balloons are reused. Bet the ushers have to pick all of them out, keep the properly inflated ones, and reblow the half-fucked ones. Save rubber, and save money and the world at the same time.

The Chosen One of NUS allows his PA to bring his fav hot coffee in styrofoam cups into a hall that prohibits other patrons to bring in food and drinks. The only reason i can think of to explain this, so that he can drink it while it’s hot, if not cold liaoz = waste money.

Reception food at ceremonies are never thrown away, we ship them to malaysia to feed cows and pigs..