MTR bosses face grilling from lawmakers over rail link delays as project director quits
Lawmakers to question bosses over repeated claims cross-border line would be completed on time as project chief reveals he is retiring
The MTR board of directors has set up an independent committee to review management of the high-speed railway project.
The committee will be chaired by Professor Frederick Ma Si-hang, and other members include Brian Stevenson, Jockey Club chairman, Alasdair Morrison, senior advisor of Citigroup Asia Pacific, Dr Dorothy Chan Yuen Tak-fai, head of Centre for Logistic and Transport, lawmaker Abraham Razack, and architect Edward Ho Sing-tin.
"Having heard the many opinions and views expressed recently in the community, board members feel there is a need to conduct a more detailed assessment of the causes of the delay, and why the impacts on the opening date and budget had not been clearly highlighted to the board," said Dr Raymond Chien Kuo-fung, MTR non-executive chairman.
Lawmakers have been demanding to know whether the MTR Corporation lied when it claimed its HK$67 billion cross-border railway project was on track last year.
Members of the Legislative Council's rail subcommittee visited the site of the line's West Kowloon terminus yesterday and learned that excavation had reached only three storeys below ground - six months after MTR bosses told them diggers had reached basement level four.
Pan-democratic and Beijing-loyalist lawmakers slammed MTR chiefs after their visit to West Kowloon.