Same Old Same Old

The guy was helicoptered in to address the reliability issues of the "world class" mass rapid transit system, but instead of focusing on the uptime and safety aspects, he is proving to be another despicable determined to rip off the commuters for profit objectives.

Under his charge, ex-army officer Desmond Kuek, president and chief executive officer, SMRT has just fired a shot across the bow: SMRT warned that its profitability will be further eroded in the next 12 months by the "continuing misalignment between fares and operating costs". That has to be cryptic military code for justifying another round of fare increases.

Although revenue increased 5.9 per cent to $1.1 billion, the company's net profit declined 30.5 per cent to $83.3 million. SMRT's operational costs in the first three months of this year rose 12.9 per cent from the same quarter last year, due to higher train and staff costs. Imagine, staff costs taking as significant a bite of the operating revenue as train costs. How much are the ex-officers paid anyway?

A real cheap G-clamp

In most likelihood, SMRT will decline to disclose details of the compensation package, citing it as a matter of "transport and national security". That was the official excuse when they declined mainstream media's request for photos of the crack in the rail that brought down the train system (again) on Monday. More likely they must be trying to avoid the embarrassment of a picture of the broken section held together by flimsy G-clamps. The equivalent of the collector shoe assembly being held together by a tie-wrap. Notice the familiarity in recourse to cheap engineering solutions. Welding rods must have been too expensive an option for SMRT to consider. The section with the crack was supposed to have been checked using ultrasonic testing just last Thursday. But as real engineers know, there are ultrasonic testers and there are ultrasonic testers.

The guys in charge are maintaining that the crack in the MRT rail is "no risk to safety". Let's hope they don't have to eat their own words any time soon, public lives are at stake.