Monday, February 12, 2007

Humpty Dumpty went over the costing moon

We all know about the disgraceful disaster of the MMRR2, the RM120 million Middle Ring Road Two.

So, leaving aside that no one’s yet to be blamed for its eponymous (humpty-dumpty-ish) construction, the government called in consultants and whatnot to repair a RM120 million disaster.

The repair cost was estimated at RM18 million but at the ‘end of the day’, the Opposition DAP asked why the actual repair bill had shot up 4 times the original estimate, to a humongous RM70 million.

I am flabbergasted that Humpty Dumpty had the bloody gall to say: “The initial figure did not take into consideration the RM8 million paid to a foreign consultant.

Has this been the way the Works Ministry ‘work’, forgetting intrinsic costs like consultancy in a repair case of monumental proportions? Has the staff been so incompetent as to leave out the very first item when costing the repair?

Then Humpty added that the cost also inflated because the number of pillars needed to be repaired also doubled from 18 to 36.

I am just sick of such nonsensical feedback from Humpty. But being the arrogant minister he has always been, he ticked off the DAP for daring to question him to account for a cost under his ministry management that quadrupled?

5 comments:

  1. What a load of BS from the Minister of Toll. That works out to almost RM1.7m per column.I am quite sure that any self respecting engineer (any in Works Ministry?) can tell you that for RM70M he can repair all 36 columns for less that half the cost and have enough spare change to have them gold plated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hmm................ gold plated pillars, I like that..........the pillars must have been gold plated but have to be covered with cememnt to protect it from being stolen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wonder how much of it went into non-construction related costs..you know...special handling fees, goodwill expenses,

    ReplyDelete
  4. Being an almost daily user of the MRR2, I can attest that it is the absolute worst designed and most decrepitly built highway ever... and don't even get me started on maintenance...

    Actually, it would be an insult to highways to call it a highway... MRR2... Malaysian Rollercoaster Ride 2... with elusive speed limits (they change without warning) - actually, travelling from one end of it to the other, you could probably count the number of speed limit signs... on one hand.

    Those CON-sultans must've really laughed all the way to the bank on this one...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love your "CON-sultans" - must remember to employ it in a future posting

    ReplyDelete