Contractor in Hong Kong bridge scandal faked tests at 55 other sites, including children’s hospital

Hong Kong’s Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) has revealed that the contractor involved in the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau (HZM) Bridge construction scandal, Jacobs China, submitted falsified test results for other local construction projects, despite previous reassurance from the government that the firm had primarily worked on the multibillion-dollar bridge.

At a weekend press conference, the CEDD said that its review of the testing conducted by Jacobs China — done at the request of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) — found they were involved in 400 tests for 55 other construction projects in Hong Kong. Out of those 400 tests, 130 were found to be problematic, 14 of which involved the Central-Wan Chai bypass construction site.

Other affected sites include the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital, landslide prevention projects, and road improvements.

Department officials said the raw data of the samples does not match up with the numbers Jacobs had submitted in the test reports, Ming Pao reports.

Norman Heung, acting director of the CEDD, said during a press conference over the weekend that an additional 116 test samples in the HZM bridge were found to be problematic, on top of the previously flagged 210 samples. The CEDD will finish their investigations within this week and will announce the full results later.

Last month, the ICAC arrested 21 employees of Jacobs China from various roles on suspicion of falsifying concrete compression test reports and covering up the malpractice. According to the government, lab technicians and assistants had replaced test materials to meet strength requirements and conducted the tests outside of their specified time frames.

Prior to this revelation, the CEDD had told HK01 that Jacobs China’s work in Hong Kong was mainly limited to the HZM bridge. However, officials have since been questioned in LegCo after Jacobs China’s involvement on other infrastructure projects was revealed, with lawmaker Michael Tien criticizing the government for continuing to award contracts to the company embroiled in the scandal.