Amended Penang Umno building plans submitted and approved within a day, inquiry panel told
The Commission of Inquiry into infrastructure failures in Penang today heard that amended plans of the Umno building were submitted and approved on the same day.
The Penang Umno building has become the centre of an inquiry after a lightning arrestor atop the 21-storey structure collapsed on June 13, crushing seven vehicles on Jalan Macalister and causing two deaths. Either others were injured.
The first inquiry witness, Tan Lin Hai, an architect with the Building Department in the Penang Town Council (MPPP) since 2003, told the three-man panel that the building plans were approved on July 30, 1997.
The amended plans were submitted on July 23, 1998 and were approved on the same day. The building then received the occupancy certificate four days later.
"This means that the building was fully constructed before the amended plans, which included an amendment in relation to the lighting arrestor, were submitted," said the chairman of the inquiry, Datuk Yeoh Yang Poh, a former Bar Council president.
Also on the panel are engineers Professor Roslan Hashim and Datuk Dr Gue See Sew.
Lawyers Mureli Navaratnam and Ong Yu Shin are acting as conducting officers.
"The amended plans included the absence of a steel tie structure, which would have secured the lightning arrestor to the structure of the building, making it harder for it to be toppled," said Tan.
Yeoh: I know you were not in the department at that time but would you have approved this plan without the approval of an engineer?
Tan: No.
Yeoh: Does this mean that by the time the amended plans were submitted, the building was already up?
Tan: Based on the records, yes.
Mureli then pointed out that it was “safe to assume” that the 21-storey building could not have been completed in a year.
"The construction of the building most probably began even before the plans were approved in 1997. I don't know... maybe they had an agreement or something," said Mureli.
The Umno building is owned by the Majlis Agama Islam of Penang and has been leased to JKP Sdn Bhd.
The Commission of Inquiry was set up to investigate the road collapse in Batu Maung and the toppling of the communication tower atop the Umno building in Jalan Macalister in June this year.
The hearings began today at the Technology Court in the Penang High Court Complex.
Lawyers Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor and Noramira Abdul Hamid held a watching brief for JKP Sdn Bhd and Ung Chirt Kye and K.T. Rajah Naidu for the Bar Council.
On June 6, the ramp over the Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu Expressway in Batu Maung collapsed, crushing a Perodua Kelisa driven by former policeman Tajudin Zainal Abidin. He was killed in the incident and three other motorists were injured.
On June 13, an evening storm wreaked havoc, causing the 42-metre lightning arrestor on the Umno building in Jalan Macalister to collapse.
The tower crushed seven vehicles when it fell to the ground.
The dead were Indian national Jahir Hussain Sulaiman, 46, who was driving a lorry, and hawker Lim Chin Aik, whose car was completely smashed and pushed into the ground by the fallen concrete mast. Eight others were injured.
Lim was presumed dead as his body was never found. An inquest was held to investigate the circumstances of his death.
Yeoh said that the inquiry was to "discover the truth" about both incidents and to make recommendations to various authorities to avoid similar incidents from happening again.
"Let us honour the memory of those who died in finding the truth and seeking a better future," he added. – October 11, 2013.
