Singapore leapt 5 places to 10th costliest city in the world in just 6 months, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey of 140 cities.
The EIU’s index, which measures the prices of 160 products and services such as food, clothing and utilities, is designed to help companies calculate the pay packages they give to their expatriate employees.
Michael Rigby, 30, an exhibition specialist from Oregon who claims to come to Singapore regularly for work, was apparently not fully apprised of the cost of eating out, especially at National Environment Agency (NEA) run Newton hawker centre. His group of 6 Americans racked up a bill of $491, including a charge of $239 for 8 tiger prawns, which works out to be about $30 per prawn. They chose to eat from stall 43, Tanglin Best BBQ Seafood because their helpers assisted in securing a table at the crowded eatery. One of his guests, a Mr Rubio from Arizona thought the prices were comparable to those of an American restaurant and thought nothing of it. But Rigby decided to lodge the first ever complaint of over-charging against the stall at Newton, on which NEA had just lavished $4.8 million (down from $48 million reported in Straits Times, Tuesday Mar 17) in spruce-up works.
Rigby and his wife Dewi had originally set out to show his friends, all here for the first time, “how safe, clean and honest this island city was.” Actually Rigby should be grateful there was no 7% GST or service charge on the bill. And when the stallholder had returned with four others, in their 40s and well built, to impress upon him that “they didn’t want us to leave without paying,” there was no further altercation that might have be deemed as Voluntarily Causing Hurt under Section 323 of the Penal Code, which is designated as a non-seizable offence. In layman terms, Rigby and his companions could have been pummeled to a pulp, and his unidentifiable assailants could have walked smugly away as they usually do at Boat Quay punch-ups.
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