What purpose to pass laws and not to administer them?

• robertteh

  24 May 08, 00:17

  Sometimes we are told that certain laws were passed to protect public safety like the Building Control Act and regulations made requiring Professional Engineers to certify structural elements as safe with computations before granting permission for the construction of the building. Many condominiums were leaking through the external walls with seepages into bedrooms and living rooms. Complaints made to BCA often come to naught because despite the laws being passed for safety and maintenance purposes as stated by parliament, complaints were not entertained by the BCA which appears to regard such problems as problems of the residents who were requested instead to engage their own PEs or consultants to prove their case with inspection and testing resulting in many leaking condos not being repaired causing more serious leakages and even structural danger due to deteriorations. At least one of the apartment blocks in Orchard Road was so leaky in the external walls that despite so many past repairs the external walls are still badly leaking wetting all the bedrooms and living rooms during raining days. The MCST used some excuses like presence of inter-floor toilet floor seepages to deny responsibility for repairing the external walls and BCA conveniently pushed all complaints back to the residents by asking them to engage their own consultants to prove their case against the MCST's opinion. What is the role of MCST if it is not to represent residents to solve problem over such external wall seepages? What is the purpose of passing laws like Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act if it is not to look after the maintenance of common property like the seeping external walls of condominiums? What is the purpose of passing laws of such nature for protection of public or safety if at the slightest the BCA can push their duty away by taking the view that residents have got to engage their own PEs to fight out their case in court. Is the original laws passed for public safety now still seriously being administered by BCA? Or is BCA also trying to avoid such duties as stated in parliament and use every excuse to push back problems to the weaker parties unable to engage expensive PEs leaving our many buildings to rot. If BCA adopts such an attitude what is the purpose of passing these laws like Building Control Act or Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act with all the responsibility of MCST or BCA to be taken over individually by residents themselves.
• Hogzilla

  24 May 08, 08:26

  Get the residents together to engage a lawyer to say "hi" to the developer.

• robertteh

  24 May 08, 10:20

  Originally posted by Hogzilla:

  Get the residents together to engage a lawyer to say "hi" to the developer.

  
  Which is why I am saying there is no need to pass the law or set up a BCA then if the law came back a big circle and ask residents to engage their own lawyers to fight the big developers even for leaking roof or wall taking place on raining days.
• Watch It!

  30 May 08, 06:08

  to give the perception to allow the law to proceed ... some flexibility of interpretation ... which is needed for normalisation of where the powers are ...