LTA got cheated $500 million by Austrian company, why no uproar in Parliament?

Leckmichamarsch said:

Datz nothing
Ho Ching lost same in buying Micropolis............and I believe she din show remorse

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Narong Wongwan said:

Micropolis was child's play.....losses in hundreds of millions.
She has since graduated to 9 digits figures.

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xpo2015 said:

Never check their finance status before awarding the contracts? Oversight here.

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Unrepented said:

Tenders documents never call for financials meh Question is who did the due diligence and who approved......

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Unrepented said:

Tenders documents never call for financials meh Question is who did the due diligence and who approved......

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Papsmearer said:

Well, this is the issue here with the huge PAP bureaucracy. In other countries, the tracks, rail lines and stations are owned, and build and operated by the train company. An example of this would be Amtrak in the US. But here for some stupid reason, there is an additional level of unnecessary bureaucracy, the stations, lines and rail infrastructure is owned by LTA, while the trains and service is owned by SMRT. By rights, SMRT as a "private" ltd company should build their own fucking stations and rail infrastructure. this way, if an Alpine Bau happened to them, the shareholders are the ones that suffer the losses and the red ink. If SMRT had to write off $500 million, some heads on the BOD will roll. Now, because LTA is behind all this, the loss goes to the taxpayer. Fucking PAP.

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Papsmearer said:

Well, this is the issue here with the huge PAP bureaucracy. In other countries, the tracks, rail lines and stations are owned, and build and operated by the train company. An example of this would be Amtrak in the US. But here for some stupid reason, there is an additional level of unnecessary bureaucracy, the stations, lines and rail infrastructure is owned by LTA, while the trains and service is owned by SMRT. By rights, SMRT as a "private" ltd company should build their own fucking stations and rail infrastructure. this way, if an Alpine Bau happened to them, the shareholders are the ones that suffer the losses and the red ink. If SMRT had to write off $500 million, some heads on the BOD will roll. Now, because LTA is behind all this, the loss goes to the taxpayer. Fucking PAP.

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Papsmearer said:

Well, this is the issue here with the huge PAP bureaucracy. In other countries, the tracks, rail lines and stations are owned, and build and operated by the train company. An example of this would be Amtrak in the US. But here for some stupid reason, there is an additional level of unnecessary bureaucracy, the stations, lines and rail infrastructure is owned by LTA, while the trains and service is owned by SMRT. By rights, SMRT as a "private" ltd company should build their own fucking stations and rail infrastructure. this way, if an Alpine Bau happened to them, the shareholders are the ones that suffer the losses and the red ink. If SMRT had to write off $500 million, some heads on the BOD will roll. Now, because LTA is behind all this, the loss goes to the taxpayer. Fucking PAP.

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Papsmearer said:

Not only financial documents, but every year, Alpine is supposed to submit an audited set too.

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Papsmearer said:

I will explain to you like this.

On a contract this size, a down payment, initial payment is usually made. Than progressive draws are given on a predetermined interval, usually based on the amount of work that has already been done. eg. 20% completed on the project gets a draw of XXX$ for Alpine Bau. Its is possible that LTA made the initial payment, but Alpine did not do enough work as per the contract.

The clue is that Alpine Bau made the project so far behind because of its bankruptcy that LTA was forced to hire not one back up but 2 back contractors to finish the job. And they paid a premuim for these contractors to work overtime to get it done close to the deadline. When you are forced to hire contractors at such short notice and you ask them to expedite the work for you, they will quote you a high bid because you need them to pretty much try to meet the deadline no expenses spared. This is where the loss comes in, it is costing LTA hundreds of millions of $ in extra cost to hire these 2 companies to finish up at breakneck speed. LTA is trying to recover this cost from Alpine Bau. But this does not answer the following questions:

- Where was the completion bond on this project? LTA should have insisted on Alpine Bau giving them a performance bond, usually in an irrevocable LOC from a bank, so if Alpine cannot finish the project, LTA calls the bond and gets some money that way. Minimum should be a $100 million perfomance bond.
-WHy did LTA nor Alpine Brau take out insurance on the project to protect themselves from this eventuality?
- Why was there no clause in the contract that would allow LTA to terminate it in the even of insolvency of Alpine or if Alpine was sold or merged with another company. Instead of immediately terminating the contract, they dragged it on until the project is so far behind schedule. They need to cut their losses early and run.

After over 20 years of building MRT, they still don't have a singapore company that can do this? They are always giving the MRT projects to Japanese, Koreans, European companies etc. What happens in those countries to the parent companies, no one knows. If a local company was awarded such a MRT project and in the middle of it encountered financial difficulties, the word would have been out and LTA would know about it long before anything happens instead of being blind sided like this. Bottom line is LTA did not do proper due dilligence on Alpine and then never monitored Alpine's financial health after awarding them the contract. Lewd Fuck You is strangely silent on this.

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palden said:

No la. If they never touch this contract they will still be around. Maybe they already do 90% of the job but get paid only 10%? Later still Kenna claim full amount? Have faith in govt. they not so stupid one. Always claim more so that getting paid less will still profit.

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frenchbriefs said:

Easy its called socializing costs and privatizing profits.let lta shoulder the burden of the cost of maintaining the stations,tracks and infrastructure. SMRT just collect money can already.

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Papsmearer said:

Not only financial documents, but every year, Alpine is supposed to submit an audited set too.

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laksaboy said:

'Private' my ass. Who are the majority shareholders?

Also, name me one company in the private sector who appoints SAF scholar trash such as Desmond Kuek as its CEO.

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