Collapse of uncompleted viaduct: Main contractor previously blacklisted, fined for safety lapses
Workers from Or Kim Peow (OKP) Contractors at Upper Changi Road East on Friday morning, July 14. Photo: Koh Mui Foong/TODAY
SINGAPORE — The main contractor for the Upper Changi Road East highway structure which collapsed on Friday (July 14) had earlier in the week been convicted and fined for separate workplace safety lapses and the death of a worker in 2015. It was also blacklisted by the Manpower Ministry between January and April this year.
Hours after the latest accident, which killed one worker and injured 10 others, the holding company for Or Kim Peow (OKP) Contractors requested for an immediate trading halt on the Singapore Exchange.
The request was submitted by OKP Holdings' group managing director Mr Or Toh Wat at 10.12am, citing a "pending announcement". The company's shares last traded at 39.5 cents, down about 8 per cent since markets opened.
On Tuesday, OKP Contractors and its safety coordinator and site supervisor Victor Tan Kok Peng were fined S$250,000 and S$12,000 respectively for a workplace accident on Sept 22, 2015.
Four workers fell 6.4m to the ground when the section of the working platform they were standing on under Yio Chu Kang Flyover dislodged. One worker died and the remaining three suffered factures and contusions.
OKP was charged with failing to take adequate safety measures to ensure that the working platform was safe for use. Tan was separately charged with performing a negligent act by assigning workers who had not been adequately trained and briefed on the Professional Engineer's deign to erect the working platform.
In a statement on Tuesday, MOM's director of Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate Chan Yew Kwong said: "This is a clear case of a company that does not take workplace safety seriously. As an approved scaffold contractor, the company did not have trained scaffold erectors to assemble the standing platform, nor were the workers under the immediate supervision of a scaffold supervisor.
"MOM will not hesitate to take punitive actions on companies and individuals who knowingly put workers at risk. There is no excuse for companies who fail to take ownership of workplace safety."
The company had been engaged to expand the Central Expressway, Tampines Expressway and Seletar Expressway interchange, which included structural, piping and finishing works for the flyover.
It had also been given 25 demerit points by the Manpower Ministry, and was blacklisted between January and April this year.
