Workers' Party parliamentarians will ask Ministry of Transport about the defective SMRT trains

And we hope that the PAP MPs will also ask MOT about the defective SMRT trains too.

Martino Tan | July 12, 2016, 04:58 PM

It has been a week since Hong Kong-based media outfit, FactWire, broke the news that a total of 26 China-made SMRT trains were being sent back to fix defects.

Although the Ministry of Transport (MOT), Land Transport Authority (LTA), and SMRT had provided several clarifications last week, questions about LTA's contract evaluation, and the timing of the disclosure remained unanswered.

Just today (July 12), Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan has said that there will be a full airing of the issue.

Five Workers' Party (WP) parliamentarians -- MPs Pritam Singh, Muhamad Faisal Manap, and NCMPs Dennis Tan, Daniel Goh and Leon Perera -- have already indicated that they will ask MOT a total of 17 questions about the issue in parliament next month.

Source: WP Facebook

Source: WP Facebook Source: WP Facebook

This is what we know so far:

LTA awarded a contract in 2009 to Kawasaki Heavy Industries and CSR Sifang to design, manufacture, and deliver 35 new trains for the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL) (From LTA).

SMRT's engineers discovered that 26 of the 35 trains had cracks on the surface of the car-body bolster (From SMRT).

This was discovered during a routine trains inspection in July 2013 (From LTA).

Source: LTA Facebook Source: LTA Facebook

Laboratory tests showed that these cracks were due to localised impurity in the aluminium car-body material that occurred during the manufacturing process (From LTA).

LTA also commissioned an external third party assessment in 2013 which had confirmed that the trains are safe to operate (From MOT in Factually).

The sound of silence

While veteran journalist PN Balji was quite harsh in his criticisms of local media for being unable to perform the type of investigative journalism that was done by FactWire, what was also absent was the stillness on the white side of the parliamentary aisle.

This is especially so for the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Transport.

According to People's Action Party website, GPCs were mooted by ESM Goh Chok Tong in 1987 and set up to "scrutinise the legislation and programmes of the various Ministries".

None of the nine-member Transport Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) had voiced their concern in public or on their Facebook pages.

During the past week, they have shared Hari Raya greetings (7 out of 9), conducted house visits (3 out of 9) and highlighted the questions they asked in parliament (1 out of 9) on their Facebook pages.

This is in contrast to a few WP parliamentarians who had voiced concern about public safety and the lack of disclosure on their Facebook page since last week.

Source: PAP website Source: PAP website

While we are not demanding the PAP MPs to provide answers to these MOT-related issues on their Facebook pages, we expect that they have at least prepared some questions to ask the Minister for Transport in the next parliamentary session.

Or some Singaporeans may interpret the silence of these PAP MPs, like how Minister Lawrence Wong have interpreted the non-responsiveness of the WP MPs in the town council saga ("WP town council and the sound of silence"):

"One of my the responsibilities in the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth Transport GPC is to regulate charities scrutinise the programmes of MOT.

One thing I Singaporeans have learnt about charities being an MP is that wanting to do good is not enough.

When you are responsible to represent the will of your fellow Singaporeans for public monies, whether donations or fees, good intentions are not enough to prevent bad outcomes.

After my colleague Desmond Lee, as well as many residents and commentators in the media, raised questions, I was expecting the WP PAP to issue a prompt and full reply, and end its long and damaging silence.

Sadly, nothing of the sort has happened.

Instead, there is silence - one that is growing more deafening by the day."

 

Related articles:

We summarise WTH is going on with MRT train cars being shipped back to China

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