TNAG-1642-FCO40-2289-Public-finance-in-Hong-Kong-Supplementary-Appropriation-(198-1987 — Page 340

Date:

18.12.86.

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Time:

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Reporter:

PMO

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paragraph 12, you mentioned that

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MR MOTTRAM: I beg your pardon ?

MR POON: Just following on the question from Mr Chung,

I am referring to your submission, page 6, paragraph 12, on this particular aspect of supervision, does your firm wish to put the record right to say that it is unfair to take the allegation out

of context and if there had been no Clerk of Works, then the

consultants would have supplied their own extra supervision.

That gives the impression, which you have just explained

hear me ?

can you

[Mr Mottram adjusts earpiece] I am referring to your submission, paragraph 12, page 6, in which your firm refers to the unfair allegation because, word for word, it is taken out of context, and you did say that if the Clerk of Works had been supplied by the Government then the consultants felt there should not be extra supervision and this is being referred to in the report.

You did refer to that, that there was no requirement in your view to have constant on-site supervision, but just a while ago you added that that doesn't mean your firm did not provide any supervision. Now, may I ask, in this particular case, since the commencement of work to the finding of the faults in the concrete, was any notice given to you at any time of the faulty work of the contractor, and how many visits or supervision tours any one of your staff took at

the site, because this is particularly a large contract. It would

have been normal for you at least even though you do not have on- site day to day supervision that you have contact with the Clerk of Works and the contractors to see how the work was getting on ?

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MR MOTTRAM: Yes, that's true, we did have not constant,

but we still had regular supervisory duties to perform and we did perform them. The thing about concrete is that essentially had concrete

cannot be discovered until such time as the formwork had been removed

and the job examined. It was at this stage that it was realised

that there was honeycombing and it was at that stage that we gave

instructions for the work to be rectified and it was only at that