SINGAPORE, April 14 — The organisers of Future Music Festival Asia (FMFA) were unable to assure the authorities that they could put in place adequate measures to prevent drug-related activities at the event, said Second Minister for Home Affairs Masagos Zulkifli yesterday.

This was after the police and the Central Narcotics Bureau had engaged the organisers on several occasions to assess their security plan for the event, he told Parliament.

Mr Masagos was responding to a question raised by Mr Baey Yam Keng, Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC, on the conditions that the FMFA organisers could not meet, to address the concerns of potential drug abuse at the event.

The FMFA is a spin-off from Future Music Festival (FMF), which was established in Australia in 2006. The FMFA had been staged in Kuala Lumpur annually since it was launched in 2012.

Mr Masagos noted there were drug-related activities associated with past FMF and FMFA events. Last year, FMFA in Kuala Lumpur was cancelled after six people died and 14 were hospitalised for drug-related reasons. At FMF 2013 in Sydney, more than 100 drug-related arrests were made.

Mr Masagos said the police had serious concerns over potential drug abuse at the FMFA event here, which was supposed to be held on March 13 and 14.

“Considering the repeated drug-related incidents, including deaths and serious illness that had occurred at FMFA and FMF events in Kuala Lumpur and Australia ... it would have been irresponsible to allow it to be held in Singapore without adequate safeguards and assurances,” he said.

“The event would also not have been consistent with our zero-tolerance stance towards drugs. Therefore, the police decided to reject the application for this event to be held in Singapore.”

He also noted that the organisers had advertised and marketed the event before they obtained approval from the authorities.

Mr Masagos said Singapore should remain a “place with music festivals where people can enjoy themselves in a safe and trouble-free manner”. — TODAY