NEWS & EVENTS

Lab staff charged over faked bridge concrete tests

Nineteen laboratory staff have been charged by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) for allegedly faking concrete test results for the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge construction project, as reported by ejinsight.

The 19 employees from Jacobs China Ltd (JCL) face charges of conspiracy to defraud and using false instruments. Aged between 22 and 65, they include a senior site laboratory technician, 13 technicians and five assistants. They were responsible for conducting construction material compliance tests, including concrete compression tests, at the Siu Ho Wan Public Works Regional Laboratory.

Eighteen of them face a joint charge of conspiracy to defraud after allegedly changing the time of the computers or replacing the original concrete sample cubes with high strength concrete cubes or metal calibration cylinder to falsify the tests.

The laboratory technician was accused of using a fake record slip or worksheet to record the result of compression tests between September 2012 and June 2015. Contractors involved in providing materials said that all compression tests should be signed off by an engineer, but the bridge samples were only monitored by the laboratory technicians.

Two of JCL’s senior employees have been arrested but yet to be prosecuted.

The Highways Department has released a statement saying that the concrete test results for the Hong Kong section of the bridge and related projects had met the requirements. A third party, appointed by the department, had also completed a relevant professional assessment on the structures and submitted a report to the department on 8 November. “All the test results and analysis showed the strength of the concrete fulfils the requirements,” the statement said.

Stretching for a total of 42 kilometres, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge will be the longest bridge-cum-tunnel sea-crossing with dual three-lane carriageway.

Since its construction, the bridge has been plagued by delays and an ever-increasing price tag that has now reached HKD117 billion (USD15 billion). There have also been more than 270 incidents, with at least 10 workers killed and more than 600 injured, as recorded by The South China Morning Post. — Construction+ Online