HDB buildings no longer safe, PAP fighting own fires

By: Phillip Ang

HDB buildings appear to be no longer safe. According to Shin Min Daily News, “a slab of the roof-wall” fell from Block 51 in MacPherson Road 2 days ago.

The size of the calcium silicate board which measured about “4 metres by 2 metres” – slightly larger than 2 king size mattresses – could have caused a number of fatalities. Again, lady luck was smiling at us.

Just last month a concrete sun breaker weighing a few hundred kilos was dislodged from another HDB block in Tampines.

And last year, a smaller slab of concrete fell from this block (below) in Whampoa.

Concrete has been falling everywhere and it’s not confined to HDB blocks. A ton? of it has fallen from an LTA-constructed pedestrian bridge. All these incidents were preventable.
Buildings are falling apart, our MRT system is breaking down so frequently, lifts are going berserk, trees are falling down in record numbers, SMRT buses taking short cuts via muddy fields, etc. What’s next?

SMRT trying to save on fuel costs?
The common cause of all these preventable incidents has been confirmed: PAP has been employing ‘cheaperer’ labour and using lowest-cost materials to increase profitability.

After this incident, the BCA, HDB and Marine Parade Town Council sprang into ‘wayang’ (drama). And soon, the issue will be swept under the carpet. The party accountable for the honest mistake will not be disclosed.

MacPherson MP Tin Pei Ling has said that she is hoping that the authorities will consider revamping these few blocks in the near future – standard PAP fire-fighting protocol.

As our infrastructure ages, we should expect more PAP-created issues to surface. How not to when they have been focused on milking citizens and taking economic shortcuts without accountability?

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Republished from the blog ‘likedatosocanmeh‘.