Secretary-General of the Reform Party, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, has filed a police report against the cameraman hired to cover the recently concluded JB Jeyaretnam memorial event for breach of contractual agreement. A cameraman who covered the event for a honorarium, Ben Matchap, has taken to Facebook to tell his side of the story and to take Mr Jeyaretnam to task for inconveniencing him.
Mr Matchap in releasing the email conversations between them said:
“So, I was contacted by a friend to help out for a charity dinner. When i found out it was the JBJ charity dinner I agreed to help for a small honorarium of $200 to do the photography and videography for the event.
Usually accepting such a small amount would mean I am spoiling the market for other camera workers, but hey it was for a charity. But then I got a text the next day that said I had to send him the files in 30 mins or I would not get payment.
This confused me because I already sent it to the friend who got me the gig and was liaising with me. So basically shit went out of hand and apparently he made a police report because he thought I sent the video to TOC which is bullshit because TOC was filming their own recording of the event.
Because he threatened to not pay the token amount at the start of the event I felt more comfortable asking to receive the money before sending the content over. At no point did I even mention asking for $500, after all the agreed rate was $200.
Here’s a lesson for anyone who wants to hire artists to create content: NEVER EVER start a conversation by threatening to not pay and if you are already getting 1/3 the price be fxxxing grateful. Now I have to go to the police station to let them take my statement.”
Mr Jeyaretnam had not responded to Mr Matchap’s allegations at the time of publishing this report.