Explaining the Seac Pai Van fiasco | Lowest bidder tends to neglect quality

Rui Leão (L) and Addy Chan

Following the discovery of various flaws in the public housing estate in Seac Pai Van, including that of paper bags inside the apartments’ walls and cracks appearing on walls and ceilings, the quality and safety of the structures have been called into question.
The deputy council president of the Macau Institution of Engineers, Addy Chan Kuai Son told the Times yesterday that while the workers certainly did not use proper materials to fill the gaps in the walls, he does not believe that the buildings are structurally unsound.
Meanwhile, Rui Leão, vice president of the Architects Association of Macau said that the incident reflects the challenges the government and contractors in Macau are facing. He also said that the authorities should review the practice of awarding public project contracts to firms submitting the lowest bid.
Addy Chan described the filling of gaps between the walls and the doorframes with objects like paper bags as a “local method”, which has gradually been phased out in Macau over the space of a decade. “[Filling gaps with paper bags] is not the standard measure. The correct way is to use styrofoam strips”, he said. “If the consultants at the construction site have noticed such an issue, they would usually take pictures and notify the contractor to take down all the frames affected and correct the problem.”
The engineer said that the building shouldn’t have structural problems, as the usage of unauthorized objects was restricted to fill the gaps between the wall and the doorframe. Nevertheless, it is still a potential household hazard, as the doorframe may collapse if it endures too much pressure. He added that it is possible to find the same problem in walls located near windows.
As for the cracks on the wall and crumbling tilts, Chan said it is again a craftsmanship issue instead of a safety one. “Tilts are destined to crumble, the problem is how long they are going to last before falling. This is related to whether the workers had followed instructions when installing the tilts; whether the ratio between the cement and sands are in accordance with the standard and if enough of them were [applied on the tilts]”, he said.
“There are various factors that have to come together to result in a perfect finish. If there were any shortfalls in any of the steps, it could then lead to [the problems] we now see”, the engineer added.
While it is possible to carry out a large-scale repair that may involve the examination of all walls and the dismantlement of others, Chan reckoned that it would definitely disturb the residents. Instead, he said that the authorities should deal with problems such as cracks as soon as they are found. He also said that the authorities can take infra-red photos for the walls at the public area to determine which of them are in need of repair.
In the meantime, vice-president Rui Leão of the Architects Association of Macau argues that the public should consider various factors before passing judgment and blaming the government for the construction flaws. He stressed that the administration does follow international standards in terms of supervising public construction with various personnel, such as the appointed designer, on-site supervisor, as well as staff from quality control institutions.
Mr Leão believes that there are several factors that have influenced the development of the Seac Pai Van project. One of them is the bidding mechanism of Macau’s public schemes that consistently awards the projects to contractors who lodge the lowest bid. The architect added that there is a considerable difference between the budget of government projects and that of private ones, such as casino resort constructions, in the recent years. “If the contractor [of public projects] is awarded for giving the lowest [bid], and if there are too many contractors bidding, which is [often] the case, then there may be high levels of competition. At the end, we cannot expect a good quality”, he said.
Given that many high performing contractors are focusing their business on casino resort constructions, which have a far higher return, Mr Leão thinks that the government simply cannot compete with the private sector by offering a low-profit contract.
Moreover, the architect pointed out that the labor shortage in Macau has further impacted on construction quality because contractors cannot find enough people who are committed to delivering high-caliber results similar to those of previous decades.
He thinks that the problems in the Seac Pai Van public housing projects merely reflect the overall challenges the contractors are facing. “If a contractor is struggling to not lose money or to break even, he’s going to have to cut somewhere, either a cut at the windows or the door or the finishing materials or the walls”, he said.
Rui Leão believes that the Macau government has enough financial capability to avoid choosing contractors who submitted the lowest bid and should instead focus on other factors such as the bidder’s track record.
“In the end, I don’t think it’s the fault of the Infrastructure Development Office because they are trying to do their best. But all the conditions have changed. If you look at the works the office was doing several years ago, the quality was much better before the casino boom”, he said.

Public housing plagued by quality problems

The Seac Pai Van public housing estate is not the only government project that has experienced quality issues. In another public housing project, Edificio do Lago, residents have reported problems with walls and doors, as well as with water pipes. Residents in the affordable housing estate Edificio da Alameda da Tranquilidade also complained about low-quality gas pipes that were alleged to have caused gas leakage last year. Various lawmakers have already questioned the government on the issue.