Concerned over quality of houses

AMID the continuously rising property prices, home buyers are becoming increasingly concerned about the declining quality of homes despite the advancements in construction technology.

This reality was brought home to me after watching the programme INNOVATHON on Astro RIA recently. It featured a system called MYCRS, which was built by a team from a Malaysian-based company providing solutions on concrete engineering IoT and digitalisation services.

The team shed light on how some contractors manipulate the concrete quality inspection process, resulting in defects in the final product – our homes.

The team said they hoped to market the system more widely in Malaysia because our contractors still rely on the manual system for concrete quality control.

As responsible individuals, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to expose our families to these questionable structural integrity. Can we trust that our homes will stand strong during earth movements, floods or other emergencies?

After watching the programme, I am really not sure if the house I purchased truly lives up to the developer’s claims of being a “solid and secure” building.

The gravity of the quality control malpractices is significant. It raises doubts about whether our construction personnel and monitoring systems are genuinely reliable compared to those in other countries.

Can we confidently claim that Malaysia’s construction industry is transparent and clean enough to forgo further quality monitoring?

This situation demands a wake-up call. Our government and other leaders must ensure that our buildings and national infrastructure are managed with transparency and accountability.

If MYCRS, which, as its innovators say, is being used in Hong Kong and Singapore, can protect our citizens, the government should mandate its adoption. It is time to take action and leverage this local innovation for the betterment of our society.

PICASOHO

Serendah, Selangor