A PARTY-LIST lawmaker on Saturday urged the Department of Transportation to conduct a full systems audit first on the entire MRT 3 system before even thinking about getting a new maintenance service contractor.
Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta party-list Rep. Jericho Nograles said that while he supports the move of DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade to immediately search for options on who would take over the maintenance of MRT 3 after it rescinded the contract of Busan Universal Rail Inc., he should first get reliable data on the problems that needs to be quickly addressed for the rehabilitation of the MRT3.
“The DOTr should conduct a full system audit first! Hindi ko alam bakit inuuna ni Sec Tugade ang paghahanap ng kontratista kung di pa nila alam gaano kabigat ang problema ng MRT3,” Nograles said.
Nograles, who made a series of exposé on the anomalies surrounding the MRT 3’s previous maintenance deal with BURI, said that the DOTr should have a short term and a long term plan on how to address the problems hounding the train system.
“What are the short term fixes that would at least reduce the glitches? Do they need to replace all the tracks in the long term to ensure the full rehabilitation of the entire system? If the Government will not conduct a system audit and just award a Contractor, the sins of all previous contractors will be whitewashed,” Nograles said.
“In every takeover, the first thing to do is to.conduct an audit. Without an audit, how we would know who should be held accountable to the.defects and missing parts?” Nograles asked. “That is simple due diligence that the Government must execute. That is just common sense,” Nograles added.
Part of the systems audit should include a detailed investigation on what happened to the Bombardier Vehicle Logic Units (VLUs) which were mysteriously replaced with unauthorized and mismatched VLUs, he said.
Nograles said that out of the 73 MRT 3 cars, only one is still equipped with the original Bombardier VLU which serves as the “brain” and the primary automatic safety device for MRT 3 Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) while the rest have been pilfered and were replaced with “chopsuey” and unauthorized parts.
After terminating BURI’s maintenance contract, the DOTr has announced that it would like tap the services of MRT3’s original maintenance service provider, Sumitomo Corporation and its technical partner Mitsubishi Heavy Industries under a government-to-government (G2G) agreement with Japan.
