Shoddy construction? It's an open secret lah...

From The Star on 2 May 07:

Shoddy work could be tip of iceberg, says Navaratnam

KUALA LUMPUR: The recent collapse at three new government buildings is symptomatic of the state of deterioration in standards, quality, productivity and efficiency in the country, said Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam.

“There’s too much concern to make a quick buck and too little attention given to professionalism. This could be the tip of the iceberg,” said the Transparency International Malaysia president.

He believed the problem was not going to end until something was done to address the root causes and make those responsible pay.

(for the rest of the article, click here)

Shoddy workmanship around Putrajaya is not something surprising. It's an open secret. And it's not only in Putrajaya. And to save some face, Samy has seen it fit to tell the PWD Director Abdul Rahim Ahmad to shut up when the director mentioned a few causes for the burst pipe in the Putrajaya immigration HQ building, and alluded to the fact that there are more of such cases in the administration capital.

To see for yourself this is not an isolated case, just go walk about Putrajaya. Around the mosque area (Dataran Perdana if I'm not mistaken) you could see broken tiles, stalagtites, and signs of leaking everywhere. You would have thought that since Putrajaya is technically developed by Putrajaya Development Corp, which is a Petronas subsidiary, it will have less of an issue with problematic constructions. But you and I know that the government treats Petronas as its own kitty litter. Not to be outdone, the newly opened court complex in Jalan Duta has cracks showing up already.

These are but some of the few examples where government related constructions (i.e. the ones contracted out, which in turn gets sub-contracted out, which in turn...) are showing signs of shoddy workmanship barely a year or less after completion (let's not talk about those which never seem to finish). The MRR2 elevated highway, the school computer labs, naval hall, etc. To think these are only recent phenomenon means you have been hibernating in a cave somewhere.

According to my friends in the construction industry, almost all government construction projects are inflated in price. This would logically mean that there should be no problems in a contractor finishing the job on or below budget, and according to the design specifications (which I understand are actually quite high). However, more often than not the projects will then be sub-contracted out a few times. You could imagine how the ones at the bottom of the "food chain" will struggle to complete the project on time, on a much reduced subcon-subcon-subcon... budget, and according to the design specifications. We can count ourselves lucky enough that the rot in these constructions have not been "that bad" as to cause deaths (i.e. like in Philippines or South Korea where whole building collapsed). But it is a disaster waiting to happen, and like everything else in boleh-land, even when such catastrophic lives-taking incident would happen, the government and the people of Malaysia will never learn.

One solution out of this? Well, the government knows it, heck even Pak Lah knows it. Just dish out such projects in an open tender basis! I am still waiting for Pak Lah to find the guts and time from his regular doze-offs to deliver on his promise not too long ago that open tender will be the norm for government projects. Of course, that is on the assumption that he didn't have a slip of tongue lah when he said "the norm"!