Thursday, March 09, 2006

Bridge vs Bridge

Now, it is not easy sometimes working ALONE at home. Not that I am complaining but sometimes it felt rather awkward and afterall, human beings are social animal right?

We only order Sin Chew Jit Pot on Wednesday as nowadays the newspaper (Star) has got so many things to read and of course the usual thing that i will grab in the morning is my comic section. * he he* So it would be rather wasteful to order 2 in a day while time left for reading is so little...


And so feeling lonely and rather lost yesterday, I go thru the Sin Chew rather thoroughly and caught my eyes on the Kepong MRR2 bridge comment column. For all I could recall, the bridge took a long time to complete and was utilised less than 2 years and now closed for repair (whilst just a while ago, our lovely 'Sammi' said it is safe and sound. Contradicting as always.
Now, it took MYR 238 million to build the golden bridge but for all I know, our Sammi invited a Brit consultancy company to 'supervise' and 'CONsult' the repair work. I remembered watching the news on TV whereby Sammi asked the Brit guy 'So, u think this would all be wokay, safe yah?' and the Brit guy said "YEAP, it would be safe then!". From the camera, we could see some guys mending the bridge la, 'huh! plastering only?' I thought. gulp.....

According to the columnist
(guess the fact should be quite true la, otherwise he could be sued, heh?), a local contractor company named Bumi Hiway would be doing the job ( guess they are the original contractor) and will be supervised by this mat salleh la. The whole repairing contract involved repair work for 18 numbers of columns and would cost around MYR 18 million borned by the Contractor. All materials needed would be transported from UK and arrived in a week's time. The contract will last for 3-4 months ( so vague one ah? but ok, repairing work could be quite tricky, ok ok)

But less than 20 days, Sammi goes a big round and make new announcement :
1. The govt has decided to terminate contract with the Brit, and paid the company a whopping MYR 5,000,000!
2. Oh, they prefer Germans instead to be the CONsultant now.
3. Not 18 numbers but 31 numbers of columns to be repaired and it would cost MYR40 million to repair now. The best is this : Govt will pay!!!!!!!
4. The contract would take 4 months, starting end of February.

Q1 : Now, why all of a sudden? Why change consultants? The govt breach the contract meh? Otherwise why pay the mat salleh RM5 million for work that is barely started? Note the materials will only arrive in 7 days' time and minus the weekends...wow, that is surely a good sum of money for 'preliminary' work eh? Better than loan shark wo!

Atok, what do you think is the percentage of fees in UK ah? So good ah? I want to go there la like that.... :(

Q2 : What happened to the 1st Contractor? What happened to the work that he is supposed to pay and complete?

Q3 : Why govt need to pay for this? And not the initial Design and Built contractor which is suppose to guarantee that the bridge is fit and safe for end users?

Q4 : Why the govt is so frequent minded? What is the agendas now? Why aren't all factors be taken into account carefully and thoroughly before making decisions?!
Govt rich ma.. Don't prray prray ah!

No wonder we need to pay extra RM0.30 per litre for fuel now. Not only that, we need to pay extra RM0.30 for a bowl of noodle
(wah, need a litre of fuel to transport a bowl of noodle ah? 趁火打劫 ! )

Ok, I guess I am feeling better now after letting this all out! It is already past noon and here I am actively writing my blog and heck, I am a CONsultant what?! sigh.................what a mad mad world.

Well, let's enjoy another bridge just completed else where and already open for public! It is the world's tallest bridge in France. The length of the bridge is 2460 meters. Tallest point 343meter above ground. Cost : USD377 million.



What a photogenic manmade structure, love it! mamamia!

8 Comments:

Blogger Contented Mum said...

This is what you called "Malaysia boleh" loh! :( So we simple malaysia suffer in silence loh!

2:58 PM  
Blogger Allyfeel said...

Feeling better? I thought I landed at another politician's weblog. :)

What a view. Lovely bridge. Looks like Penang bridge minus the fog. :P

3:19 PM  
Blogger ROYAL JESTER said...

Blinka,
I was just thinking about the same thing. YEsterday the whole office were having lunch at Uncle chilli's and my boss started this topic about how govt is wasting money, OUR money on lots of contruction work that had gone wrong.
It just made me more depressed. I know things are going to get worse and I can see that in the future, Malaysia isn;t going to be a Wonderful haven anymore.
Sedihla....
BLEAK BLEAK FUTURE....

11:31 AM  
Blogger blinka.Li said...

contented mum,
hmm, always boleh at wrong thing for what? sad for i love this country dearly.

allyfeel
politician? never. People like me sure got kicked out from the real political circle. no eyes see. will be better next friday...after my dinner..:P

pu1pu3
sakit hati. something is going really wrong in this country but it has become a custom to us to not see, not hear, and talk only on our blogs! :P and if we ever question them, they go deaf or they delay to answer hoping that we will forget. sigh....

4:40 PM  
Blogger Lydia Teh said...

Allyfeel has said what I wanted to say. Anyway, ranting about it does shed some of the burden, doesn't it?

8:45 PM  
Blogger Atok said...

ayo-yo sami.
well, professional fees... i think it won't be much different compares to msia lah, probably even lower; sorry, i'm not that certain about structural engrs'. but for architects...it's sulks here [fee wise]. we're among the lowest paid among professionals over here; work for peanuts.

nevertheless, i think the decision to get germans is wise [rather than brits]. they're more efficient and productive, at least.

6:55 AM  
Blogger blinka.Li said...

Lydia,
sure! luckily still have freedom to blog! :)

atok,
ah, yes. I sure remember clearly that one of lecturers told us that architect is like 'prostitute' in a way. haahaha I frankly don't know what it is going to be like when the market is open for Mat Salleh to come in later! sad to say that a lot of people still kow tow to MatSalleh here.

Germans? It was already a fact I guess but how come they dont think of that BEFORE HAND and have to pay the brits for doing almost 0 ? Y Y Y Y Y ?

5:49 PM  
Blogger Atok said...

you wanna know why? bcoz brits are the champions of 'kelentong'; cakap berabuk and sound so ever wonderful and brilliant! when it comes to work, errr... a bit slow.
-------------

frankly, i dont mind being a highly paid 'prostitute', but over here, we're juz low-class back-street over-exploited cheap ones :((

-atok-

10:22 PM  

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