By: Leon Perera
I read with concern that 26 defective train carriages out of 35 delivered to SMRT in 2013 have been shipped back to China for repair and/or replacement in June. If this news had not been broadcast by a foreign news outlet, it is not clear when the SMRT and/or the LTA would have informed the Singapore public.
According to LTA’s press release of 28 May 2014, it would appear that the same consortium that supplied the defective train carriages in 2013 was awarded another contract worth $749 million for 91 new trains.
Another 12 trains were purchased from the same consortium at a cost of $136.8m according to an LTA press release on 22 Sep 2015. It is not clear if the defects noted in the trains delivered in 2013 were noted before the 2014 and 2015 contracts were awarded to the same consortium.
If so, the public should know what measures were taken to ensure that similar defects did not recur in the subsequent orders. The MRT is a key pillar of our public transport. I look forward to more information pertaining to this case being made public.
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Republished from Leon Perera’s Facebook.