SINGAPORE: The engineer in charge of two SMRT employees killed on the job in March 2016 was sentenced to four weeks' jail on Monday (Mar 12), after he pleaded guilty to one charge of causing death by negligence.
Lim Say Heng, 48, could have been jailed for up to two years and fined.
He was in charge of a 15-man team tasked with investigating a possible signaling fault between Tampines and Pasir Ris MRT stations on Mar 22, 2016.
Instead of boarding a train to the work site as required under safety guidelines, Lim led the team onto a walkway parallel to the track to make their way to the work site on foot – without warning incoming trains.
The only safety measure attempted was a handwritten note put up at Tampines MRT station, but it did not indicate to train drivers that there were workmen on the track ahead.
At about 11.22am, Nasrulhudin Najumudin, 25, and Muhammad Asyraf Ahmad Buhari, 24, were hit and killed by an oncoming train.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe men were new employees, and had been undergoing on-the-job training when they were killed.
Their colleagues, including Lim, narrowly escaped. They had either stayed on the walkway or managed to jump out of the path of the oncoming train.
Lim was sacked – along with the driver of the train that killed the men – months after the accident.
Train operator SMRT and its director of control operations Teo Wee Kiat were charged alongside Lim in December 2016. The accident remains SMRT’s worst fatal rail incident.
The company was ordered to pay a record fine of S$400,000. It was convicted under the Workplace Safety and Health Act (WSHA) for failing to do the necessary to ensure the safety and health of its employees at work.
At a hearing in February 2017, Deputy Public Prosecutor Anandan Bala said the accident took place “against the backdrop of an inexcusable systemic failure to ensure … strict compliance with (safety guidelines)”.
The prosecutor lambasted the Operations Control Centre – directed by Teo – for “giving the green light to employees (to work) in clear contravention of (safety guidelines)”.
Teo was fined S$55,000 in September 2017 after he pleaded guilty to the same charge under the WSHA. The prosecutor had said Teo knew safety protocols were regularly ignored, but did nothing to remedy the situation.
At the time of his sentencing last year, Teo still worked for SMRT and was credited with implementing stricter protocols governing track access during traffic hours.
A coroner’s inquiry into the deaths of Nasrulhudin and Asyraf is expected to take place.
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