A senior Housing Bureau surveyor on Wednesday told the Wang Fuk Court fire inquiry that he did not think advance notice of inspections would give site managers a chance to hide violations.

Senior maintenance surveyor Ku Siu-ping from the bureau's independent checking unit said he had inspected the estate 10 times, eight with “pre-booking”.

He said an advance notice was needed because a supervisor must be there to explain how things work, so he believes there was a practical need.

He disagreed that it would alert the site to hide violations.

Senior counsel Victor Dawes questioned whether advance notice of inspections would make it impossible for inspectors to identify real problems.

Dawes gave the example of the contractor rushing to order scaffolding nets that met the required standard just to pass the inspection.

Ku responded that the scaffolding nets at Wang Fuk Court covered a large area.

He said his team did not tell anyone in advance which spots would be checked, so there was no way for the contractor to know where to "tamper with".

The inquiry previously saw a video of a scaffolding net being set on fire in a safety test.

It did not stop burning after 10 seconds – someone had to blow it out.

Yet the net still passed the fire safety test.

Ku explained that they did two more tests again, and both times the net did not catch fire.

So he had no particular reason to suspect a problem at that time.

He said in some cases, a net may catch fire because of environmental factors.

He explained these were used nets, so they might have picked up other flammable materials from the construction site. That is why they usually do multiple tests to double check and they would not demand a full replacement just because a net catches fire once.



Edited by Tony Sabine