By Gobind Singh Deo

I call upon the authorities to take stern action against those responsible for the crawler crane collapse along the Kelana Jaya LRT extension project in USJ2 Subang Jaya last week.

This has happened before. People who drive along roads where there is construction can no longer feel safe and assured that heavy objects won’t fall on them or their vehicles.

The problem seems to be the lack of action against those responsible. For example, in December 2005 Dr Liew Boon Horng was killed instantly when a steel mould fell onto the car he was traveling in as it passed along a construction site in Sri Hartamas. His wife and driver who were also in the car were seriously injured.

Then in March this year A. Vijayasingam was killed when equipment being hoisted by a crane at a LRT extension site in Subang fell onto the Hyundai Sonata car he was driving.

In June this year, Tajudin Zainal Abidin was killed when the ramp leading to the second link of the Penang bridge which was under construction collapsed on the car he was driving along the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu expressway.

With respect, if the authorities want this to end, they must be firm. They must take action. Those responsible should where the evidence so warrants, be charged, sentenced and if necessary, imprisoned. The Attorney-Generals chambers cannot and must not remain silent.

And the companies they work for must be punished severely as well. Monetary compensation alone is not enough. They should, if the evidence so warrants, be blacklisted permanently from further carrying out such jobs. This is the responsibility of the federal, state and local authorities depending on where the incident occurs.

It is frustrating. The authorities have been too laxed with contractors in cases like these. When there is an incident, it becomes an issue, a topic of concern and discussion for a few days and then everything goes quiet until something happens again, property is damaged or even lives are lost. There is and has been a lack of seriousness on part of the authorities to deal with the problem effectively and this must stop.

It is interesting to see how cases like these are dealt with elsewhere. In Philadelphia recently, an excavator driver  was charged with 6 counts of involuntary manslaughter and 13 counts of recklessly endangering another and 1 count of risking a catastrophe when he caused the death of 6 persons and injured 13 others when a wall he was working on at a demolition site fell onto to a shop.

Why can’t we see firm action being taken here as well? Whilst our laws may not necessarily be the same with that of Philadelphia, there are equally provisions which are applicable here.

The usual promises of a special team and investigations are well and good but that is not enough. We must get tough if we want to stop incidents like these from happening again in future.