SINGAPORE – A last-minute change in venue for the Singapore Democratic Party’s (SDP) election campaign kick-off on Saturday (Feb 23) resulted in industrial landlord JTC disputing claims made by the party on its website.

The opposition party had to scramble for an alternative location at the last minute, after its booking of a space at 115 Eunos Ave 3, made last October, was suddenly cancelled a day before the event.

On Friday, the SDP said on its website that the Eunos venue’s management, KCC Ventures, cited “JTC inspection” and “political reasons” for the cancellation.

Writing on his Facebook page, SDP chief Chee Soon Juan said: “We spent the entire day trying to persuade the company to honour its contract but to no avail. After some frenzied searching, we found another venue at Mandarin Orchard (hotel).”

Dr Chee added that a month ago, another venue owner had cancelled the booking for his book launch with a week’s notice.

The party made multiple posts on social media from Friday evening informing the public of the change in location for its campaign launch.

Party chairman Paul Tambyah told TODAY that the abrupt cancellation resulted in the party having to pay three times more for a venue for the event.

Responding on Saturday evening to the article on the SDP’s website, JTC said on its Facebook page that it was “factually wrong to link the cancellation with JTC’s inspection”.

The booking was a private arrangement between the SDP and the venue owner and the JTC said it had no prior knowledge of the SDP event.

“JTC informed the venue owner on 8 Feb 2019 that it would be conducting a follow-up inspection on 28 Feb 2019, as part of the ongoing investigations into unauthorised sub-let activities. The investigations commenced on 24 Dec 2018,” JTC said.

The decision to cancel the rental of the premises to SDP was made “without JTC’s knowledge or involvement”, it added. “It is totally irresponsible to conflate this issue with the ongoing investigations, and allege political motives on the part of JTC.”

TODAY has reached out to KCC Ventures, through Kingdom Community Church, for comments. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FARIS MOKHTAR