HOUSING AND DEVELOPMENT BOARD FLATS (Complaints on unsatisfactory workmanship)

Dr Mohamad Maliki bin Osman asked the Minister for National Development (a) how many complaints have been received by HDB from residents of unsatisfactory workmanship in the design and build of flats in New Towns such as Woodlands and (b) what is HDB doing to ensure better quality control to overcome such unsatisfactory workmanship.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for National Development (Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee) (for the Minister for National Development): Mr Speaker, Sir, under the Construction Quality Assessment System, known as CONQUAS in the trade, run by BCA, assessments of public and private residential projects have shown that, generally, the workmanship in HDB flats is comparable to the workmanship in private residential estates.

The number of complaints that HDB receives concerning unsatisfactory workmanship in HDB flats varies across towns and design types. In the case of Woodlands, for every 1,000 flats completed in recent years, about 200 instances of unsatisfactory workmanship were reported within the defects liability period.

As part of HDB's quality improvement system, regular reviews and analyses of public feedback are carried out so that continuous improvements to building design and finishes can be made. Over the years, Sir, HDB has pushed for the use of more pre-cast components in the construction of its flats to improve flat quality. HDB has also introduced several measures to further improve certain aspects of its flats, such as the tiles, doors, partition walls and sanitary fixtures. For example, HDB implemented an improvement programme for tiling works this year. Training workshops were held for contractors' supervisors and handbooks on tiling techniques were produced, to encourage implementation of good practices. Tilers, Sir, working in HDB contracts are also now pre-screened and approved to ensure that they are sufficiently skilled to carry out such works.

Nonetheless, Mr Speaker, Sir, if Dr Maliki knows of any defects in his estate within the defect liability period, please inform us so that we can look at the nature of the problem.

Dr Mohamad Maliki bin Osman (Sembawang): I wonder whether the 20% complaint rate is acceptable to HDB, because 200 out of every 1,000 new flats with unsatisfactory workmanship is quite high. Secondly, what has the Ministry to say about the kind of quality control mechanism that is in place? Because it is rather disturbing to note that when HDB new flat owners come into their flat, they realise that there is unsatisfactory work done, and 20 out of every 100 flat owners would be facing the same problem. Can the Senior Parliamentary Secretary please clarify the quality control mechanism that is in place, and why is it that the problem still occurs?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: Mr Speaker, Sir, Dr Maliki might have misread the statistics I quoted. There were 200 instances of unsatisfactory workmanship reported within the defects liability period for every 1,000 flats. In one flat, there may be two or three instances of defects, eg, the flat owner may say these tiles are not polished, those tiles are not polished, so there are two instances. So, it is not 200 flats out of 1,000 flats. It is 200 instances. Some flats have more complaints, some flats have less.

Is the number acceptable? It is in the nature of construction that some defects do occur after completion of the flats. That is why, in all contracts, whether it is private condominiums, landed estates, or HDB flats, we provide a one-year defects liability period, for the contractors to move in to remedy the defects.

Dr Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman: Sir, in my question, I asked specifically about design-and-build flats. Can I clarify with the Senior Parliamentary Secretary whether the statistics he quoted refer to all design-and-build flats or to all flats? Because the problem with design-and-build flats is that the flat owners will go in and expect everything has already been done, and they feel very disappointed when they find a lot of defects in their flats.

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think most of the flats in Woodlands that Dr Maliki referred to are of the premium type. So, they are either design-and-build, or design plus. These flats come with full finishings. They have completed kitchen, as well as tiles. Because the flats have more fixtures, there tends to be a little bit more defects. Compared, for example, to a plain vanilla 4-room flat, there are no kitchen fixtures, the floors are not tiled, so there is no question of tile complaints because there are no tiles. So, there are slightly more defects than the plain vanilla standard type of flats. In fact, instances of defects in Woodlands new town are lower than the global average across all towns.