'Poor Supervision Root Cause Of MTR Scandal'

The vice-president of the Hong Kong Institute of Construction Managers, Daniel Shum, said on Wednesday that poor supervision is likely to have played a major part in the flawed construction scandal at Hung Hom MTR Station.

Shum's warning comes a day after the government set up a judge-led inquiry into the shoddy building works at an expansion project for the Shatin-Central link, where steel bars were chopped short because workers couldn't screw them in properly.

Shum said it is unrealistic to expect construction managers, who are responsible for supervising projects, to make a record of everything that happens.

But he said the managers would be behaving in an unprofessional manner if they failed to make a record of any rectifications carried out.

There has been confusion since the Hung Hom scandal came to light about which firm was responsible for the substandard work, and who alerted MTR bosses and at what point.

Shum also told RTHK's Janice Wong that the absence of a registration system for local construction managers means they aren't forced to take responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

"They do not have the registration so they will usually act according to the contract of course ... because so many things they have to consider especially as construction managers, they have to balance the cost of time and quality of the project."