Deadlines No Excuse For Steel Blunder: Lawmaker

Engineering sector lawmaker Lo Wai-kwok said on Thursday that the Housing Society's explanation that a rush to meet a deadline led to the use of substandard steel in a development project was an "unacceptable reason".

The society had confirmed that 7.5 tonnes of concrete reinforcing rods made from substandard steel had been used at the Ming Wah Dai Ha subsidised public housing project in Shau Kei Wan.

It said a subcontractor had put in the steel before safety test results were completed because it was "rushing to meet a deadline".

This did not go down well with Lo. "This is no excuse to compromise quality. We have established proper procedures and a management system for site management," he said.

"The use of fortified material is a basic requirement. But of course any system, if it is not properly followed, there's a chance of getting things wrong," Lo said.

He urged the main contractor and subcontractor to review their procedures and find out what went wrong. But he noted that the use of substandard steel in a Housing Society redevelopment project was a rare blunder.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Housing Society, Marco Wu, said the substandard steel bars were being replaced and said he believes the problem was not major.

He said the most important thing is to prevent similar incidents in future, so the society will “definitely follow up” on it, but he did not elaborate.

The former president of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Greg Wong, said he was also not too worried as only limited areas of the building appeared to have been affected.

Wong said all the ribbed bars were tested and only one batch was found to be substandard.

"What the contractor did was he put in the ribbed bars at his own risk, because he just put the ribbed bars in before the testing has been done and the results known," he said.

The subcontractor is now replacing all the substandard steel at its own cost.