PIE viaduct collapse: CPG Consultants ordered to pay Or Kim Peow Contractors $43.8m

SINGAPORE - Consultancy firm CPG Consultants has been ordered to pay home-grown builder Or Kim Peow Contractors $43.8 million over the collapse of part of the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) in 2017.

Or Kim Peow had engaged CPG to provide design services for the project, its parent company OKP Holdings said in a Singapore Exchange filing on Monday.

The statement added that the total sum of $43,792,693 is to be paid within 28 days from March 3.

The arbitration tribunal further ordered CPG to pay Or Kim Peow interest on the sum from March 31 until the date of payment, at a rate of 5.33 per cent per annum.

This comes after Or Kim Peow initiated arbitration proceedings against CPG in December 2021 in relation to the accident.

One worker was killed and 10 others were injured after a portion of the viaduct from Tampines Expressway (TPE) to the PIE and Upper Changi Road East

collapsed in the early hours of July 14, 2017.

The subsidiary – which won the $94.6 million tender in November 2015 to construct the viaduct – and five people were charged in court in May 2018 over their role in the accident.

In May 2021,

Or Kim Peow was fined $1 million for failing to take reasonable measures

to ensure the safety of its workers, while project director Yee Chee Keong was sentenced to 13 months in jail, and project engineer Wong Kiew Hai was sentenced to 11 months in jail.

The court ruled earlier that the employees had recklessly endangered the workers after failing to call for all work to be stopped even when cracks on crucial brackets were spotted.

Originally called TPE/PIE/Changi viaduct or Changi viaduct, the structure was to be completed by the first quarter of 2020.

Hwa Seng Builder eventually took over the project for $95.6 million, with work resuming in 2019.

Following further pandemic-related setbacks, the long-delayed project, now renamed Tampines Viaduct,

opened on Feb 19.