Political Science Society (PSSOC) of National University of Singapore (NUS) has issued a statement on the canned Asia-Pacific Model United Nations Conference 2019 (AMUNC), saying that it is not the organiser of the event but will nevertheless assist participants to process the refunds.

It was earlier reported by The New Paper on Thursday morning that the AMNUNC 2019 – which was supposed to be held on Sunday (7 July) at Resort World Sentosa (RWS) – had been cancelled by the organisers. It was told by a RWS spokesman on Tuesday that it had been informed the event would not be happening.

TNP reported that the cancelled event was to be held with the support of PSSOC and many students who have been looking forward to the cancelled event were devastated.

It is said that this is the first time that the event has ever been cancelled.

On the same day of the TNP’s report, the society came out to clarify that it is not the organiser of the AMUNC 2019 but had lent its name to an organiser by the name of Ms Deng Yushan.

This was penned in a letter posted on the society’s Facebook page and signed off by Ryan Tan President, 50th Executive Committee of PSSOC.

The society said that Ms Deng and her volunteers worked independently “and apart from PSSOC to organize the event”.

According to PSSOC, other than organising the event, Ms Deng was the one who went to Australia and bid for the event and had agreed to underwrite the event.

The society noted, “The lack of planning and response from Ms Deng raised concerns and we had come to learn that the organizer has been unable to carry forward with their plans.”

It further went on to state that it had made every effort to contact Ms Deng but it did not receive any response from her, it had to make the difficult decision of issuing a notice of cancellation to the participants and take all steps to inform RWS and the other stakeholders.

“Our society, though not the organizer is now forced to clear the mess that the organizer had created, and we are trying our level best to settle matters amicably and to protect the interests of PSSOC and the members of the society. As PSSOC is the trustee of the funds for AMUNC, we will take all steps to provide the participants with the necessary refund paid for the event. ” wrote the society in its letter.

It also noted that it has engaged lawyers for advice so that actions will be taken in the society’s best interest and to protect the members.

“As the matters may lead to litigation, we will have no further comment on this matter save that which is set out in this press release.”

According to Ms Deng Yushan’s Facebook profile, she was formerly a business director of PSSOC from Aug 2017 to Aug 2018. Also on her Linkedin profile, she lists herself as a current student leader in the NUS student union.

Just earlier this Jan, Ms Deng had made a rant on her Facebook page about her ideals on organising the AMUNC 2019.

As if making a self-fulfilling prophecy, Ms Deng wrote near the end of her post, “At the end of the day I am alright if the conference falls through because of poor planning. But seeing conferences with even poorer planning and execution draw in bigger crowds and misleading the first-time delegates to think that “so this is what MUN has to offer? Pffft” scares me.”