Daily Lessons from Life 29 December 2011 - MRT breakdowns: Committee of Inquiry appointed

"MRT breakdowns: Committee of Inquiry appointed - CNA 29 December 2011

SINGAPORE: Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew has appointed a Committee of Inquiry (COI) to look into the two major MRT breakdowns earlier this month.

Heading the COI will be Chief District Judge of the Subordinate Courts, Mr Tan Siong Thye.

The other members of the committee are Professor Lim Mong King from the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Nanyang Technological University and Mr Soh Wai Wah, Director of Prisons.

They will look into the sequence of events that led to the disruption of train services on the North-South Line on 15 and 17 December, make recommendations to minimise the recurrence of such incidents and suggest ways to improve the management of similar incidents.

Chairman of the committee, Mr Tan Siong Thye, said: "The two MRT service disruption incidents of 15 and 17 December are quite unprecedented. They caused significant disruption and inconvenience to hundreds of thousands of commuters.

"Such incidents can also potentially pose a public safety issue if they are not well managed. As a daily user of the MRT myself to and from work for more than ten years, I share the concerns of many who want to know what went wrong and how to restore confidence in our MRT system.

"I will do my best to fulfil the Terms of Reference which Minister Lui Tuck Yew has given to me and my fellow COI members, Professor Lim Mong King and Mr Soh Wai Wah.

"We will take a comprehensive and systems approach to understand the underlying causes that could have contributed to the problem and propose improvements needed.

"My immediate priority in the next few weeks will be focused on fact-finding and also speaking to relevant experts."

The committee will be gathering information from rail operator SMRT and the Land Transport Authority (LTA). Its work will be separate from and independent of the investigations being carried out by SMRT and LTA.

The committee is also inviting the public to present evidence at the inquiry."

Indeed the 2 breakdowns were very high impact and visible. Public agitation were aroused. The disquiet need to be answered.

Lessons for me are:

1. the COI has a huge job to do. And a thankless one if I may add;

2. the length of the inquiry must be short enough before anyone starts having unclear recolllection that may hinder rather than make clear what actually happened so that a better insight can be had on what could have caused the massive costs inflicted by the 2 incidents;

3. the impartiality of the COI must be absolute - real and in appearance. The focus must be on finding out the root causes rather than fixing blames though anyone found negligence or carelessness will have to answer for their actions.

May the COI has a smooth journey in finding out the bumps along the MRT tracks.