Gov’t not admitting violation in Barra Transport Hub flaws

Despite assuring follow-up actions, the Public Works Bureau (DSOP) did not admit to the existence of procedural flaws in the road defects found in the Barra Transport Hub.

Lam Wai Hou, director of the DSOP, made the comment in his reply to lawmaker Leong Sun Iok’s written inquiry. The inquiry was dated January 6 and the reply January 30.

After five long years, the construction of the transport hub was concluded in 2020. Certain parts of the structure were opened for public use in December 2022. However, the asphalt floor of the bus terminus level started peeling off less than a month after the opening. The lawmaker even cited workers with bus companies who revealed that the peeling situation started “not long” after the opening.

This situation raised public concerns over the efficient use of public resources, especially in terms of money.

Leong emphasized that the situation did not only cause inconvenience to users of the facility, but also highlighted the fact that the lack of supervision still exists. As such, he asked the government why the defects existed even after government engineers approved the project, and if there was any misconduct.

In the second half of the question, the lawmaker asked how the government would review and refine the supervision mechanism to improve the quality of work and inspection.

To this question, Lam only said that the bureau was seriously concerned with the quality of public works projects.

“With regards to the Barra Transport Hub project, the government has commissioned design, supervisory and quality control units to monitor the technical requirements and quality of the engineering work,” Lam said in the reply, adding that in the tender notice, the quality of work, the specifications of materials and the standard of acceptance had been stated.

He assured that his bureau would do its best in supervising the construction of all public work projects.

On the responsibility of the builder, the official noted that the affected areas had already been repaired, as “the project was still within [the] guarantee period.”

The lawmaker also asked how the government would improve the quality of local traffic infrastructure to ensure durability, given the city is seeing more heavy vehicles. To this, Lam pointed out that certain roads had seen integrated materials being introduced in anticipation of their heavy loads.

In another written inquiry, lawmaker Lei Chan U raised questions on vocational training. In his opinion, the current vocational training programs offered by the government do not fit its policy direction of “1+4” economic development.

Amid the government offering hands-on training to young people with a focus on the “1+4” diversification development strategy, the lawmaker questioned what the difference was between this training and the paid on-job training.

In addition, seeing the talent committee making estimates only on requirements for the next three years, Lei asked if the government would request estimates spanning longer periods, from the mid to long term.

Currently, the government is offering short term intensive training in electrical work as well as eastern and western culinary skills.

Another lawmaker, Ron Lam, asked the government for plans on the sale of gasoline products for vehicles with an octane level of 95.

In his inquiry, he demanded the government expedite designating a plot of land for a new gas station on the New Urban Zone A and expressly require that the gas station offer this type of gas product.

The reason behind his request is that the city has no outlet for gasoline with an octane level of 95, which is 15% cheaper than the currently-offered gas with octane level 98. He added that the manufacturers of most vehicles in Macau recommend using gas with the lower octane level.