Kenneth Lau
Monday, July 21, 2014
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MTR Independent Board Committee chairman Frederick Ma Si-hang, who is leading the probe into the delay of the high-speed Express Rail Link, said in a TV interview yesterday that the railway operator was "overly ambitious" in starting five mega projects at the same time. Ma added that in hindsight, it was probably wrong.
Along with the committee's first report on the two-year delay, released on Thursday, came the announcement on the same day of the early exit of MTRC chief executive Jay Walder.
"The MTR Corp may have suffered from a bit of indigestion," said Ma, an independent non-executive director of MTRC and former secretary for commerce and economic development.
"When these five projects were started, no one could have predicted that the 10 major projects would go ahead at the same time, leading to labor shortages."
The five delayed projects are the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, the Sha Tin to Central Link, the West Island line, South Island line (East) and the Kwun Tong line extension.
Then chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen announced his 10 major infrastructure projects, which included the Express Rail Link, Sha Tin-Central, and South Island projects, in his 2007-08 policy address to promote economic development and create employment opportunities. Some of the 10 projects were being built in 2010-12.
Ma also said the committee's final conclusion on the Express Rail Link, which has yet to be confirmed by independent foreign experts in the second report, is expected to be completed in October.
"Since we are not engineers, we have invited two experts to help us review the conclusion that we have made, which is not related to human [error], if it is correct or not."
The two experts are Bent Flyvbjerg, founding chair professor of major program management at Oxford University and Kao Tsung-chung, director and research professor of high-speed rail systems at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Legislative Council transport panel chairman Michael Tien Puk-sun reiterated the MTRC board should seek new blood to monitor the railway giant.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=147559&sid=42655779&con_type=1&d_str=20140721&fc=1
