A man, Daniel Goh presumably runs a stall which sells alcohol. Singapore Police Force's licensing unit sent out a mail to him dated 6 September 2018 informing him to apply for a renewal of the stall's alcohol license. The letter states that they have to pay it before 4 December 2018.
Goh received the letter only 1 February 2019. Singpost's date stamp on the evenelope showed that the mail was only cleared on 30 January 2019. This meant that Goh's stall was essentially selling alcohol illegally for about over a month without even knowing.
Is it acceptable for our postal service to handle such letters so slowly? Are they just being irresponsible towards us? In the picture which Goh provided, a stamp saying "Please post early" can be seen clearly. Perhaps if that stamp wasn't available they would have taken more than four months. Goh should be glad.
You can read Goh's full post below:
They say Singapore is an easy place to do business. It normally is - it's easy to incorporate a company, start bank accounts and get the usual licensing approved (pretty quickly too). But all it takes is the incompetence and sheer negligence of an essential public service to destroy all that.
Yes, I'm referring to Singapore Post.
Here's a letter that I received in the mail last evening from Singapore Police Force's Licensing Unit for a renewal of our stall's alcohol licence dated 6 September 2018. But if you see Singpost's date stamp on the envelope, this was only cleared on 30 January 2019.
TWO DAYS AGO.
We needed to have paid for this before 4 December 2018 - it's 1 February 2019 today. This essentially means we have been selling alcohol illegally for the past month without even knowing. We could be shut down any time if the police come checking. Heck we may never be allowed to operate and sell beer ever again, all because Singpost took FOUR MONTHS to deliver an official letter from a government authority. I leopard crawl from Police Cantonment Complex to my home also won't take one month.
Or should just be glad I didn't find this in a random bin? In any case, readying the lawyers.
PS: Can't get through SPF's hotline to clear things up, probably because of Chinese New Year. Please don't shut us down in the meantime, can? It's 不吉利, lah.
