Some of you may have seen this online report on SMRT (extract in the image).
This is obviously fake! How would SMRT have been able to complete the change out of all the power rails and 188,000 sleepers if staff count had indeed been cut so drastically?
Contrary to what is purported, under SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek’s tenure, the Permanent Way (PWAY) team that looks after our track and track-side infrastructure almost DOUBLED.
It grew from 206 staff to 395 staff from 31 December 2010 till 30 September this year.
The number of night shift workers also increased by 65% with more permanent night shift staff added to the North-South and East-West Lines in the same period.
The number of personnel carrying out maintenance work is even more when one adds external contract workers who augment the permanent staff on the tracks.
Source: FB post by SMRT