MTR Corp employee admits inspection team backdated key checklist for platform on scandal-hit Hong Kong rail project – but can’t remember whose idea it was
- Documents based on site photos and recollections of senior site inspector were compiled in June this year – but dated February 2017
Giving evidence at the commission of inquiry into shoddy work on the Hung Hom station platform of the HK$97.1 billion (US$12.4 billion) Sha Tin-Central link, Michael Fu Yin-chit, the project’s construction manager, admitted his inspection team compiled a checklist of coupler installations in June this year but retrospectively dated it to February 2017.
Leighton Contractors (Asia), the main contractor for the project, is embroiled in allegations that steel bars were cut short to fake proper installation into couplers on the station platform, and that supporting diaphragm walls were changed without authorisation.
Fu’s colleague MTR Corp engineer Derek Ma Ming-ching earlier told the inquiry that after the construction scandal came to light at the end of May this year, the Buildings Department had asked the rail giant for detailed records on supervision and inspections.
However, it was said Leighton had never prepared any records or inspection log book for coupler installations as required by the MTR Corp’s quality supervision plan (QSP) for the department.