RTHK.hkToday, 12:28 PM
The consultant says it had difficulty in obtaining some sensitive information on the Express Rail Link. File photo: RTHK
William Ng (left) is the project manager of Jacobs China, the Highways Department's consultant on the express rail project.
A government consultant hired to help monitor the progress of the express rail link to Guangzhou has told lawmakers that it had difficulties obtaining information from the MTR Corporation.
Last week, its chief executive Lincoln Leong told lawmakers that the MTRC had no intention of withholding any information.
The Hong Kong section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link was supposed to have come into service in August. It’s now expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2018. The MTRC’s latest cost estimate for the project is now HK$85.3 billion, up from the original budget of HK$65 billion and a revised estimate of HK$71.5 billion made in August last year.
Testifying at a hearing of a Legislative Council select committee tasked with probing the delays, Jacobs China’s project manager William Ng said they had occasionally faced some difficulty in getting information from the MTRC. He said sometimes it took a bit longer than expected to receive documents, especially sensitive information.
But the consultant stressed the inability to access sensitive information did not stop it from alerting the government as early as in 2012 about the risk of delays to the project, particularly because a key contract to build the terminus in West Kowloon was awarded late.
http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1222682-20151110.htm
