| Balfour Beatty - Bribery Act 2010 - Failure to prevent bribery & Harassment |
| Bullying and intimidation of staff who raise concerns and provide evidence of corruption |
| 20th of Feb, 2014 by Tom Cahill |
The following article concerns a matter raised by me last week on Friday 14.02.14. I was employed by a Malaysia subsidiary. I enquired about the provision of the prevention of Bribery---as is legally obligatory. This revealed that none had been done, alongside a panic by Graham Donald who's allegedly a commercial manager, citing "comments you've made" as the reason. I was an employee who'd signed a relocation contract. The following day, I heard at around 17.00 that he'd booked a ticket back to the UK for 07.00 the next morning, and that I'd have to leave my laundry, as I'd been bad.
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If you have any similar stories about this disguising criminal behaviour, please feel free to contact me.
Skype: t0mcahill
email: t0mcahill
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[Header from report. Note anti-tipping off notice, which he's then admitted doing.]
DRAFT REPORT ON CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR & OTHER SERIOUSLY COMPROMISING MISCONDUCT ON BBAS JV’S PENANG TO PEDANG BESSAR DOUBLE TRACK PROJECT.
CIRCULATION BEYOND THE TWO NAMED INDIVIDUALS MAY CONSITITUE THE CRIMINAL OFFENCE OF TIPPING OFF.
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EMAIL ONLY
[email protected] , 0207 963 42 17
[email protected] , 0207 216 68 95
Dear Mike,
RE: FORMAL NOTIFICATION: Balfour Beatty plc (BBplc) has been seriously compromised (civilly, reputationally, and, criminally) by its own expat staff on at least one of the currently ongoing phases of the Penang to Pedang Bassar Double Track Project (Project) (part of the Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok Double Track Project scheme).
Further to our conversation of 13.02.14. This is the note that you requested in support of my spoken explanation that—not withstanding other work practises which are seriously damaging to your BBplc brand—there are serious CRIMINAL financial irregularities in operation on the Project.
Brief note on my expertise and experience
I am a firsthand witness to the facts which I report. I am a qualified quantity surveyor of ten years’ experience, having a BScQS degree. I was a MRICS cardholder but ceased paying the fees when the president of the organisation was caught doing tax fraud, and they covered it up, not even insisting he stepped down. I have the CIArb arbitration qualification. More specific to this case, I am via various turns of fate, an expert in fraud, and have substantial experience bringing actions in both civil and criminal capacities. There are currently three criminal cases which are ongoing (two in the UK and one in Australia, both worth tens of millions of pounds, which would not be happening if were not for my work tirelessly embarrassing the corrupt authorities to act. I am happy to elaborate upon request). I am writing as these idiot expat employees of one of your subsidiaries, BBAS, are not only acting criminally, but they’re doing it in a very indiscreet manner. Then, they’re treating those not in their clique badly, such as not paying them, as is what has happened with me; but there are other disgruntled employees and agents who mean that this is something of a powder keg, which will jeopardise your ability to attain future phases of a very large rail upgrade project.
This is not intended to be a comprehensive report. I am sure to state where:
o I suspect (and why);
o what I know, and,
o what I can prove:
• here and now, and,
• with access to the existent or provably absent (due to having been deliberately destroyed by BBAS onsite/systems data.
Of course, circumstantial evidence often brings peculiarities to light, and often the lack of something that would normally happen or be in place, is where deeper truths can often be found.
Whistle blowing –v– excellent opportunity to exploit
During our conversation, Mike mentioned me having whistle blown on site in Malaysia (thus having been told to leave and then not paid and not having had anything in writing as a result). In case this was not totally put straight over the phone, whilst it is certainly true that queries that I made in private to Graham Donald regarding irregularities certainly caused this to happen, I never sought to blow any whistle, and in enquiring as to the protocols to adhere to the law, this was not the same thing. Whistle blowing is a dangerous, gainless idiot’s pursuit, which destroys employment prospects. Likewise, I am not whistle blowing here. I’m letting you know what the situation is in Malaysia, that you might have some time to imagine a solution whereby you transparently cut out the cancer and remedy the situation, whilst maintaining a semblance of control, and minimise damage to the Project, BBplc and BBAS’s reputation. This house cleaning exercise—if managed correctly—can be used to promote BBplc’s reputation. Anti-corruption is the issue in Thailand, especially the South of Thailand, where the next phase of the project is due to happen, and it’s no small bit of work.
Anti Tipping Off Notice
This notification is made in accordance with my legal obligations under UK and Malay Law. Whilst I appreciate that it is logistically difficult to accommodate, I hasten to warn you of the challenges associated with the UK’s criminal offence of Tipping Off, which have primacy over any company policy or interests of your group. I urge You to familiarise Yourselves with this factor when conducting your enquiries. I am aware that there is one lawyer working (at least in part) for Balfour Beatty Ansaldo Systems JVSdn Bhd (BBAS) who’s based in Kuala Lumpur, who is a Balfour Beatty employee, but I’m fairly certain that discussing this with him would be considered a criminal offence. His name’s Julian (second name unknown).
Personal information
I consider the offending individuals (which I don’t pretend to have a comprehensive list of) who are on the project are a rouge criminal gang. As such, whilst I don’t mind giving you both my contact details, I will not be happy if any of them are passed to them. Mobile phones and IP addresses can be tracked very easily by criminals, and I’m in a dangerous country which is in the middle of a revolution which means there is an element of danger to me in alerting you to my / our concerns. Further, I would like to remind you that Malaysia has laws similar to our Data Protection Act, where all personal data can be retrieved and it is illegal to use it improperly. On the other hand, it is obtainable, so destroying it is illegal here, and I am entitled to have it, so if it’s destroyed then this will be discoverable upon my request. I urge you to carefully restrict access or transmission of this and any other report, recommending that you seek my written permission before any access is granted, which does include bent lawyers who think they can ignore the law.
Not unforeseen ramifications
Suspect expat staff who I was most closely associated with were / are:
• Graham Donald (Commercial Manager, my boss);
• Adam Stuart (Graham’s boss. Maybe other duties on project or on other projects); and,
• Conrad Fawcett (Boss of Project, Adam Stuart’s boss).
Definitely Graham, I’m certain Adam, and slightly less certain of Conrad, are incumbent expats from the UK, who have been working on similar jobs in Malaysia for a long time, with families and children in school there, etc.. Publication and rumours of corruption or horrendous incompetence being discovered will destroy any chances of them ever getting on any large-scale government funded jobs there again, and they’ll presumably be totally ruined by it, having to go to even worse places to work.
None of the three are management material. Graham’s not got any overt personality problems, but definitely Adam’s has, being a loud mouth know nothing, who keeps bellowing things out to create a surprisingly well subscribed illusion that he’s important and masterful. OVERT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR: This extended to shouting that he wanted the security guards to know that if anything else went missing, he’d burn them to death in their security hut. That particular outburst was in front of an entire open plan office. He didn’t mean for it to be a joke. Conrad’s very anxious, hysterically snapping at people for saying hello to him—again in front of an entire workfource in an open plan office—and can’t handle any degree of pressure. Other incidents of telegraphed weakness were common in the one or two times I saw him, and were twinned with an equally unappealing and totally inappropriate sarcasm and smirking, which I witnessed when he’d invited the Balfour Beatty Rail Sweden (BBRS) to attend the office in Malaysia from Sweden to sort out the remaining money owed to them; which he proceeded to tell them he couldn’t agree after all as there was a board that needed to be consulted and that he was not going to pay them according to their agreed fixed price as he wanted to look into their accounts as well and have them substantiate where they’d got their fixed price from—smirking all the time. Consider how many times you’ve raised your voice in work, and what the general thinking is on people who can’t control their temper. I’ve certainly never raised my voice, as it shows weakness. These type of people can only be relied upon to compromise your wider group and destroy any perception of a team mentality.
Compromised trainees and the termination technicians
There were around ten trainees from Loughtborough University. Some were in construction related courses. Two were on RICS accredited QS courses. They were all being badly taken advantage of. In the instance of the QS students, they had been told that their RICS diary could be signed off, but no one at BBAS was qualified, so this was a lie, so they’d been tricked into attending a hardship location, only to be paid ten pounds a day (one pound per hour for ten hours. Lodgings were included and a share of a car to be precise). They were not long having been there, and from what I noticed, were all consumed doing pointless exercises that had no final aim and they weren’t learning anything. They were not only being trained into a culture of doing nothing and having no accountability or interest in their work; they were lose lipped about various things which technically could land them in trouble. OVERT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR: I include in this was their assurances that the ex-police security boss had been hired to ease any problems with the police, by bribing them, and it helped with other aspects of cutting corners.
The courses in Loughtborough didn’t attract the same calibre as John Moores, there can be no doubt, but I none the less intend to do something to remedy their situation when I chased up what I am owed. For a start, they need to be paid a substantial amount more, and where in the case of the QSs, there is no one who’s appropriately experienced to teach them anything, since I left, the concept of their being a RICS training course is actually totally fraudulent. Another worrying thing that I noticed is that they all seemed to know that the technicians imported to do the terminations were charging four hundred pounds a day. A fact which incensed them. However, more worrying is that they thought that the technicians shouldn’t get so much, as opposed to seeing that they were getting paid way too little and were being made total idiots of. I pulled one of them up on his criticism of his colleagues (who I’ll note had displayed concern that the trainees were being abused); citing ‘Once the boy. Always the boy’, etc., and that the more money that his colleague got paid, the more money he would generally stand to make. He said that it was ‘bollox’ and that I had a ‘shit attitude’. He became venomously angry at me. Obviously this is exactly the kind of attitude people being abused often take as they’re in denial, so I don’t hold it against him.
OVERT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR: None of them saw that clearly the story about them not being able to pay them better and then having one of their mates provide all of these overpriced (for the region) technicians at huge expense, was inconsistent. Definitely they didn’t seem to think that it spelled out an underlying criminal motive, with there never having been any competitive tender to take them on board. They also appeared to believe that the propagated myth that the locals were totally useless and couldn’t do anything properly, despite the fact that they were often being supervised by UK staff was—who would generally be responsible, was just a racist policy in order to create a fairy story to allow for corruption to occur.
From what I understood. There were between seventy five and one hundred of these technicians. It was rumoured that their boss got twenty-five percent (one hundred pounds) out of the charge out rate. That means he would be making ten thousand pounds per day for doing absolutely nothing. Whilst this was technically done via his company, I read the offer letter, and it looked like it had been written by a foreigner. The man, who I don’t know, was clearly semi-literate at best, but it got worse. Two clauses were incredibly poorly written. One about insurance guaranteed to cover the client for anything they wanted them to—an insurance policy that doesn’t exist. The second clanger which I immediately noticed was something about agreeing to do anything that was contracted and anything else that the cli8ent wanted. I forget the wording and appreciate that my explanation doesn’t show how uneducated and compromising the phraseology was.
In case it needs to be said. The money being paid to that ‘company’ (a.k.a. one of their mates) is totally at odds with anything aligned with proper practise and I am certain will not all remain in his pocket. Possibly this money will be retrievable from MC Germuda if they turn a blind eye to its dubiousness, as it may be that they will be able to fudge the figures and claim it from the Malay government. I kept hearing it called acceleration. When taken alongside the lies told to me about not having the finance to pay the going rate, the lies told to the students about funding, the low going rate paid to the local staff, and the non-payment of BBRS, board or no board, there can be no doubt that this non-competitively tendered misappropriation of BBAS funds for workers to undertake repetitive semi-skilled tasks under close supervision, for which training was supplied, is clearly totally bent.
Cultural concerns
Malays and their resident Indians and Chinese are polite and quiet, and seem to have a lot of fear of the whites who occupy all of BBAS’s senior management. They don’t offer suggestions or object to doing anything. Malaysia is a corrupt country, but the serf class are in no position to question anything. They don’t appreciate being shouted at and don’t seem to understand that their bosses are incompetent thieves who would be happy to blame them for things or inveigle them in things that could get them in trouble for plausible deniability reasons, then sack them, blaming them, if they got caught out. This is very, very different in Thailand. Thais are very suspicious of foreigners and are aware that foreign parasites are their nation’s biggest danger. If they see white people wandering about with spanners, they won’t be long in working out that they are taking their jobs and must be ripping the country off, if they’re seen on a public railway. I would go so far as to say that they would be likely prone to bouts of vigilantism and that any such workers would be in danger. As for bellowing about murdering their countrymen by burning them to death in their huts—there would be no pretending not to hear or cowering in terror, and the likelihood of violence would be significant. In short, there will be no possibility of the BBAS management that I mention (I can’t speak for the others) succeeding in bringing about a positive result, should they seek to remain on the scheme as it proceeds further North, further into Thailand.
Subtle accommodation of the problems faced
I’ve asked a load of local construction professionals. They tell me that the going rate for workers doing terminations under limited supervision would be about ten pounds a day. The railway’s immediately surrounding area is not bound by the same rules on visas and passports. With a company ID card, BBAS staff and labour may travel up and down into and out of Thailand, and I’m certain visa versa. There are several advantages of using Thai labour. They have a great deal of capable, experienced workers from their other rail expansion projects, including the Bangkok Metro the Sky Train, etc.. As the next phase is going to be in Thailand, the company managing successful completion of work using them, would be a strong contender for attaining any future elements of work in their country. Thais don’t usually speak much if any English, so getting them used to things before the job goes North would be better done in Malaysia. Thais are very patriotic and not blighted by any limp wristed subversive concepts of multi-culturalism, making use of their own people a big advantage. Tacsin Shinoa (Shinoatra) and his parasite sister have lost a lot of control in Thailand, and there are none of their death squads operating in this part of the country. It seems that their lack of capacity to murder people who mention their ethnic origin has let the secret out that they aren’t even ethnically Thai, but Chinese. MC Germuda (MCG)’s a big Chinese company. Without support from their powerful countrymen who had a lot of control in the government, it will be harder for them to succeed to bribe their way on to any Thai phase of the scheme. Balfour Beatty has the advantage of being English. English is widely regarded as top quality and not corrupt. You are in a very strong position to bid for work, especially seeing as English companies did lots of the management on the other rail projects which are highly regarded, proud national assets.
Witness Tampering – offence of; & police complicity
Any physical or electronic attacks to me or my computer equipment, or the threat of—however deniable in their nature—shall be presumed to be related to this and the police will be contacted and my suspicions shall almost certainly be published. The City of London Police are mainly in charge of all British offences relating to fraud, money laundering and bribery. They are also all parasitic Freemasons who refuse to communicate with me since I’ve exposed their complicity in the ALPonz case which included refusal to investigate, stealing and hiding of evidence, witness intimidation, a defamation campaign, vexatious crime reports against victims, and proven links to the orchestrators of that fraud. Be careful how you tred when dealing with them if they become involved.
Anti-Defamation / Blackballing Notice
Any furtherance of any unproven or misleading information about me in order to discredit me or otherwise hamper me now or at any time in the future shall not be accepted. At some stage in the not too distance future, I shall require a cover note signed by you Andrew, thanking me for bringing these matters to your attention and exonerating me from any malicious lies which will no doubt be in the pipeline.
Applicable Legislation
For the avoidance of doubt, the first principle matters which I hereby infom you of, are text book examples of those which are specifically identified as being prohibited and criminally punishable under the UK’s Bribery Act (2010). They are therefore Your* concern by law.
*You / Your / Yourselves being BBplc, as well as Mike Fleming & Andrew McNaughton in your personal capacities with full criminal liability, being the only two Balfour Beatty group employees / agents / etc. that have received this notification.
Definitely including sections: 7, 8 & 9 (concerning the obligatory active pre-emptive and tangible prevention of Bribery (which I’m told by Graham Donald that BBplc provided a course for BBAS staff to attend, such is the seriousness with which BBplc consider compliance with the new Bribery prevention legislation)), but in no way exclusive to the mere prevention of. It is my understanding that BBAS are in fact promoting the likelihood of such occurrences, as well as partaking in them in a very indiscreet manner. Malay Law prohibits these practises, and, with the Project extending to Thailand, all if not most of the criminal practises are criminally punishable there, with those illegal in the UK, only so in some instances.
Other criminal breaches to note
Money Laundering, Bribery, Fraud, visa fraud, work permit fraud, fraud on the Malaysian Exchequer relating to my own limited payments, intimidation amounting to Harassment (1997, Protection from Harassment Act), criminal intimidation of staff who aren’t in any position to defend themselves, threats of violence, including murder of local staff, inveigling local staff into partaking of illegal activities through unfair pressures where they will lose their jobs if they refuse to comply, and presumably not get paid. Some workers were—I believe—from poor countries and weren’t permanent residents, so would be powerless to object.
My status whilst onsite as well as up until the following time
Whilst my status as an ‘employee’ as opposed to a contractor of BBAS is to the affirmative, it is not safe for us to presume that this status was contractually or legally sound, which extends to any visa, work permit, taxation, or, any other related matter. I add that I am certain, and have proof that these are not and were never soundly put in place according to the Malay law, or any general international contracting conventions for that matter. I had to leave Malaysia, sensing that Graham’s terrified voice on my last phone call to him, coupled with the conformation from tone of the admin/personnel ladies, that I did not have a work permit, that something along the lines of me getting fit up via their in-house ex-police corruption unit, for visa violations or illegal working. Graham and Adam had told me that they’d had enough of me for ‘comments you’ve made’ but they didn’t elaborate. They said that so far as they were concerned that they’d just say I’d moved on and that they’d sort the money out shortly. I said I’d take the opportunity to go visiting friends in southern Thailand, which Graham said was a good idea, and that I’d be best getting a bus. He said they’d arrange for an open ticket. Adam didn’t want things to go smoothly and started to go one about some nonsense about having a ‘long hard look at [my]self’, so I told him to ‘fuck off’ and that he needed to focus on the mess of a project he was mismanaging and to stop telling people that Penang was a beach resort during interviews.
When the next day I heard from them again, Graham told me that he’d send the trainees round with the ticket. I knew he was being tricky. It was obvious. I kept ringing up until he sent an email with the ticket. Obviously upon calling the travel firm, they said it wasn’t open and seeing as it was about 16.00, the time I got through to him (he was having his little helpers screen calls) at about 17.00 he was in a flap and as he’d done on some other occasions, he sobbed that he had thought it was open when he’d told someone to book it, then squealing that ‘I just want you oo-----------t of the country as soon as po-----------ssible.’ I asked him what he was so upset about. He said I’d cost him a lot of money, which I didn’t understand, but may be significant, as he does have a tendency to panick and the truth seems to come out. I told him that he needed to focus on his own short comings, like not putting the scope of works in the scope of works, at which point he became even more upset but the anger subsided. He practically begged me ‘Don’t even go there’. I told him that I’d made arrangements to visit someone and that I had stuff in the laundry, so couldn’t go to catch a plane at 05.00 in the morning the next day. I also had no way of getting the (unspecified amount of) cash he proposed to give me into the bank; consult a Malay tax advisor, which was stipulated under the contract. This whole situation was becoming very suspicious to me. Getting sacked and sacking people in construction jobs is a very common occurrence and there’s no need to annoy the person they’re sacking or whatever it is they were doing. There was a reason for the blind panick, of that there can be no doubt.
Imperfection in my reporting
Where I say ‘my first day’, or something else similar, seeing as I attended the office on the day that I arrived in Malaysia, it has to be remembered that having travelled all that way at short notice, I was far from on my best form, and my memory of the three weeks spent between the BBS’s Bukit Tengh Office / Depot in Butterworth and the Hotel in Penang, was all prior to me synching with my new environment, time zone, etc., and may be subject to slight errors, but not in a way which effects anything that I report here. Indeed, with access to the records on my Hotmail (which I’m unable to access right now) or my BBAS emails, there would be a lot to jog my memory and help substantiate my accusations.
Destruction of data
I was told by more than one person that it was the standard practise to delete emails of staff who had left. Specifically, the Indian (possibly a Malay Indian) gentleman who was in charge of IT, was ordered to delete emails of outgoing staff. This was confirmed in my mind when Graham’s agreement to seek out details of a claim against BBRS kept not getting lined up as he initially agreed at my behest, then, ended with him insisting that I cease the exercise with zero progress having been achieved, stating that:
“...you’ve spent two weeks on it, so that should be long enough.” (emphasis added)
referring to emails of staff who had left who were dealing with that particular BBAS gaff (a.k.a. ‘claim’) which they sought to blame solely on BBRS. In my experience any claim which is worth pursuing is worth considering on its merits—that’s in the case of a personal issue or in terms of a privately owned business. This is much more relevant in the context which BBAS are supposed to be working for two main reasons:
REASON ONE: They are ultimately receiving money from a government job. Any payments ultimately come from the Malay government via main contractor, MCG (a Chinese Malay or Chinese company), much of which would require substantiation for the employer of BBAS, MCG, to be paid. It is definitely significant to note that unlike the UK, where pay when pay is totally illegal, in Malaysia it is not, and in fact is specifically formalized in the all of the agreements that I had sight of.
REASON TWO: Further, BBAS is not a free agent in any way. It is joined at the hip with a totally alien company (Ansaldo Systems), derives from a Malaysian company itself, in Balfour Beaty Rail Malaysia, and that in turn is linked—possibly via further tiers of the group—to BBplc in the UK. I know that to complicate things more, that there was a ‘board’ which I kept hearing about, which had to approve everything (to what extent this is practically true, and not a rubber stamp I don’t know, but the story was, they were very fussy about every penny).
BOTH REASONS: In the case of both of the wide and potentially complex and far reaching reasons stated, what is undeniably clear is that auditability would be of the utmost importance. The ‘Sweden Foundation Claim’ as it was known, was worth something in the region of £1M, so Graham’s comment needs to be viewed in with this in mind. That is—of course—unless something bent was going on, which might extend up down or sideways in the supply chain.
My role on the Project
My job was to be to do various things, which weren’t written in stone, but roughly speaking could be understood by my position under Graham, as one of two quantity surveyors who would in turn manage two of a total of four main contracts that BBAS would be overseeing, which were doing what if we keep things in relatively generic terms might be termed the icing on the cake of what had been a substantial job prior to BBAS’s involvement. There had been earthworks; concrete bridges; permanent way (1000mm gauge track), ancillary concrete cable trays (I think these were in before BBAS were involved), and the overhanging power cable and the poles which held it up, line side buildings, inspection holes, and massively upgraded stations and associated platforms. The gist of the project as a whole is to provide an overhead electric supply, more accessible associated infrastructure in place of an old fashioned hodge podge where there’s no proper planning and everything’s a bit of a mess, all of which ran on obsolete Japanese trains, which were diesel driven (which I’ve travelled on before (and again since leaving)). It all seemed a bit of a waste of time as the trains were fine as they were, and they weren’t going to be running that much faster, and most of all, despite the decision to use the 1000mm gauge track (which may sound strange, but does run in lots of Asian counties, so I’m told), there was only to be two tracks laid side by side for all of the massive effort of redoing everything else which I have to admit makes me wonder what the whole point of any of the project is.
I’m not a train enthusiast but the point apart from giving the reader a feel for the general bearings is that this would be a highly politicised job as it is very visible to many people, crossing different state lines and is due to continue past Thailand, thus having huge potential for those concerned with building it. The leg that BBAS were working on was the Penang (Malaysia) to Pedang Bessar (Southern Thailand on border. Thailand being directly above Malaysia) leg, having in one incorporation or another previously been involved with the southerly Kualar Lumpur to Penang stretch. I think it was the same BBAS on the last leg.
BBAS were going to be performing a large part, but in the scheme of things, a small proportion of the work. This said, their job was—in basic terms—wire the whole thing up, make sure it worked, and do it in time with the overall project plan. This involved various things, but largely cable laying, terminating, and, testing and commissioning (which is the final testing) which is just like wiring anything else up such as a house, but the cables being much bigger and longer, take lots of people to put them into the conduits, which in this instance were concrete trays which were dug into the ground just below the level of where the track was laid, which had concrete covers which were very much like 1’x2’x2” paving slabs. Some of the cables, where they went off the main trunks in the trays (running parallel to the tracks) to connect to this or that thing weren’t in trays, but were buried just below the surface of the ground or possibly below the shingle layer that covered the track.
Hopefully all that makes it easier when I then explain that BBAS are on that project to deliver the most technically difficult part of a large job. This would not be a proportionately high value aspect, but one of high significance in terms of the overall product as well as in terms of the delivery time-line, as the job isn’t finished until BBAS finish and the passengers can start using their newly upgraded network. Similarly BBRS who represent BBplc were presumably selected for having reliable, high quality products and a sound grip of designing things for the demanding Swedish public’s consumption in a safe and timely manner.
Graham: dangerously incompetent criminal by accident or on purpose?
On either my first day or maybe my first full day, the day after arriving, I was chatting to Graham in his office and was concerned to make sure I was on message and how I was to focus my attentions whilst I got my head around what my role would turn out to be. The logical place to begin being the structure of the reporting, auditability, and the means to assure payments came in and claims and delays to any payment were negated—standard stuff. This was all a bit complicated, as it usually is. It was clarified that BBplc was the ultimate parent / parent parent company, so we were not just using their name (as with Woolworths in either Australia or Germany, who are still in business despite the UK one having disappeared a few years back). I then pointed out that this meant that I would presumably have to be aware of how the UK Bribery Act would have to be accommodated. Graham enthusiastically confirmed that indeed it did and that “Yes... we had to go on a big course on that... it’s very important...” I think I recall him saying that it was a three day course, but I could be wrong. He was very keen to stress its importance.
Graham was polite, friendly and accommodating up until that point. However, this suddenly changed when I enquired as to their mechanisms in place to negate any criminal liability under the Act, to which he first gulped, and then squealed that he hadn’t done one and that nothing was in place. In hindsight I don’t think he’d meant to say / think that out loud. His eyes widened. (This was not to be the last time that Graham squealed out something that he seemed to immediately regret afterwards. If he is interviewed under caution by any authorities, presuming he doesn’t drop dead of a heart attack at the mere mention, there is no way he’ll be able to keep from saying all sorts of damaging things. He’s not a leader, but firmly in the follower category—awaiting someone else to tell him what, how and when to do everything he is supposed to be doing himself. He was the commercial boss on the project having said that. I calmly suggested that this wasn’t a big deal and that I was sure we could get something in place easily, offering to have a look at doing it. He never got back to me.
Obviously under the parts of the Bribery Act mentioned above, Graham’s not doing some procedure makes him criminally liable of an offence, so he could be extradited and tried in the UK for the subject of this admission.
Looking back at it, as has been the case when working for other criminal organizations, that moment probably sealed my fate. They sometimes take a week or two to get really worried, but then the more clued up stranger becomes a liability to continued criminal operations and has to go; generally with a great deal of fabricated tales of their being useless or some other criticisms of their behaviour that are impossible to disprove once they’ve left.
Safety course
It’s only with hindsight that I conclude this. As previously explained, travelling across the world to start work is very hard going on the worker for the first few weeks as they’re getting used to everything being totally different. I therefore wasn’t on my best form as this was happening, but Adam had told me on the interview that the safety courses which took a couple of days were lined up on Sundays (I think Sundays). He said that seeing as I’d be good for nothing for a little while, I’d be best to get on the inductions where I could relax and acclimatise. However, they didn’t put me on the courses; so whilst I did ask about them, there was likely something afoot as early back as the first few days. I forget which day I got there, but it’s all documented somewhere, as are the travel documents and my log of days worked.
Mountain of copper
I kept hearing about stealing from the depots being a big problem. I said that if it was such a problem, they ought to get those hunting CCTV cameras and install them some day when the usual security staff weren’t around for some reason. They don’t need to be wired up and they’re cheap. There was a total reluctance to do this, which I think was due to them being behind the stealing. Further evidence of this promotion of theft was bought to my attention one day when I walked into the car park and saw a blazing light, like a piece of sun had fallen down. It looked like something out of the Goonies, like apile of gold treasure, but in fact it was a pile of copper connections in the back of a truck that was left unguarded, uncovered in a totally reckless manner. In a country where people get less than ten pounds a day, having thousands of pounds of stealable sized components struck me as very, very suspect.
Wooden freight boxes and their ‘importance’
All of the high value components from Sweden came in wooden boxes. In the two meetings that I attended concerning construction management, run by one of the construction people. I think his name was Jim (New Zealander, apparently replacing someone who’d been invited to leave for being allegedly useless) he said something which I found strange. I’m not in any way pointing any fingers at this man, as I have nothing conclusive to base any such feelings on, but he made three main points to the contractors who he’d not met before. One, was logical but standard, was that he wanted them to finish each bit of work so he could get the testing done tightly in behind the progress of the work, so it woudn’t hang out. The second point was that in the event of any problem, he was to be called personally if necessary, but that more BBAS staff were to be permanently overseeing the work, and that they were there to support the work of the contractors in whatever way that might entail. Then the strange thing. He started talking about how they weren’t allowed to leave bits of wood or freight boxes around. He was very specific that they couldn’t leave any boxes or bits of for any time at all. It seemed very strange to me. Boxes are there to protect valuable stuff that can’t easily be replaced, seeing as it mainly came from Sweden. The idea that leaving a bit of box on a disused bit of ground of a disused platform, being a priority is incredibly strange. Both meetings he went on about these boxes as though they were unexploded ordinance. Something fishy was going on, but I think he’d been told to make a big fuss about this and that it was not his thinking. An ex boss of mine told me selling the expensive wood from boxes is normally worth a fair cost saving on jobs, and that at a minimum, it can fund a few good parties or staff outings. I really don’t know, but it will eventually come to me. I think the box hysteria was part of some cover to allow components to be stolen in the mad rush to get rid of the totally harmless pieces of wood—which have no place on a building site!
Site visit
I went to the site one day, under supervision as I wasn’t allowed on my own due to not having done the mandatory courses still. The entire stretch I saw had the concrete trays’ lids all smashed round the edges (they had interlocking flanges). Hundreds of meters of them, all smashed round the edges, and open, leaving much of the trays with the cables in, filled with weeds, in a right mess. This mess was consistent all the way along all of the track that I inspected. I don’t know what tool would be appropriate, but there are tools available that could lift these lids without destroying them. The weeds all growing was a terrible mess as well. Also the inspection pits, of which there were quite a few, going down three or four meters, were all meters deep in water, with no covers on. Since leaving, I have had cause to travel on the train to Pedang Bessar and saw that the trays are lidless there with all weeds growing as well, all smashed round the edges. Further, I witnessed big piles of boards and other mess all over the newly built station. This story about the boxes looked all too unbelievable and inconsistent with the facts. I got off at that stop and had a good look about from the over-track bridge which gave a good view. These shoddy working practises cannot be blamed on the local contractors. They are being supervised and have been supervised to one extent or another from day one. These lies about them not being capable of doing anything properly is simply racist lies. If they do one thing wrong, and money is withheld or whatever, then they’re not going to keep doing it incorrectly. This is not a matter which anyone can seriously entertain. The locals are useless myth is all part of a plan to sabotage the job, so the management can get their mates in on massively high day rates for the region, in return for backhanders, presumably.
Forgetting to put the scope of works in the scope of works times two or times four?
As I explained on the phone call which preceded this report, there were four main contractors underneath BBAS. I was to manage two of these. Another QS was being sourced to look after the other half. These main contracts were intended to involve the installation of cables and various widgets which mainly meant cable laying and terminations. There were communications, signals and power, all included in this. I have to say I forget how they split this up but I was to manage two of the four contractors. The contractors were familiar to BBAS from previous work on the line further South. No prizes for guessing that they were allegedly totally useless. They had had their contract awarded and were already onsite, but I’m not sure what they were doing, which may sound a little strange, which is because it is strange. They had had their contracts awarded prior to me arriving. In both of the two ‘kick off meetings’ it transpired that whilst I’d been told and everyone else had been told that they were providing the entire product, supervision and all, they hadn’t signed up to this in their contracts. This was the cause of a lot of whispering and suspicion amongst the newer BBAS staff, who couldn’t believe the incompetence of Graham in managing to forget to make sure they knew what they were to do, then awarding them the contract without reading it, or their bids. I didn’t really understand what was going on and was keeping quiet, but Graham then confirmed that I’d have to do the first variations, extending the scope of their works. This, of course is an admission of liability, so it would seem that there was no argument that they had misunderstood the requirement as BBAS had tendered. I’ve never heard of anything so strange and doubt that it is possible to even count such a massive shift in responsibility a variation, as it changes the entire story, to the extent that the whole basis for tendering and selection would ideally be re-evaluated. Of course, the contractor would have a massive upper hand in determining the cost of this new aspect of their work, which of course may have been the entire point of the exercise; or maybe it’s more incompetence? I am fairly sure the imbecile has left the scope of works out of the other two contractors’ contracts as well. How can this have happened? Can he really be this much of a total waste of space or is this all done deliberately to promote a panic so they can claim to need to ‘accelerate’, and ‘have to’ take on some expensive countermeasures, which can be supplied by their friends at huge expense with no time for the normal check and balances or competitive tendering?
Three named individuals
I really have no idea what purpose any of the three named managers has other than to blame things on the locals and get drunk in the evenings. They could maybe get away with pretending to be thick, but do you want them playing thick on your job? Incompetence is very prevalent in construction wherever there’s a profit motive. It always covers some kind of snide business. Leaving the scope of works out of the (definitely) two or (most likely four) of the four contracts is definitely a stackable short-coming for all those who are directly responsible. As I’ve said this is not a comprehensive report, albeit being quite lengthy. I do like to be accurate and accuracy requires proper positioning of facts, that they not be misunderstood. I’m sure you have the capacity on the job amongst your staff to cut out the bad apples identified here and replace them with people who are a lot better.
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“At Balfour Beatty, our reputation is a key business asset – indeed it is fundamental to our long-term success. It gives our customers, employees, partners, suppliers, investors and the many communities that we serve, the confidence to trust us and do business with us. Our code of conduct gives us all a clear framework within which to make decisions. By applying your good judgement to the principles set out in the code, guided by the values that underpin them, you can play your part in upholding our reputation. I urge you to challenge any unethical, dishonest, unacceptable or questionable behaviour, and to speak up when you see things that don’t match our standards.”
Andrew McNaughton, Chief Executive, Balfour Beatty plc
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Criminally threatening email which prompted this report. Note he also idiotically admits that he's committed the offence of Tipping Off. He's an incredible imbecile as well as a clumsy criminal.
----- Original Message -----
From: Fleming, Mike
Sent: 02/19/14 10:49 PM
To: Tom Cahill
Subject: RE: Confidential Report for your Immediate Attention
Tom. To acknowledge receipt of your emails. My aim is twofold – both to satisfy myself that there is no breach of our ethics and compliance standards and to ensure that due process and contractual obligation was honoured with regards to yourself. In order to this, I need to take advice and guidance from the local management team to get their version of events. Obviously this process will take longer than 24 hours and I will not be pressured into an immediate response. My intentions are purely for a factual and lawful settlement. With that in mind, I would caution you with regards to making public defamatory statements that could compromise a positive outcome.
Regards, Mike |
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Criminally threatening email which prompted this report. Note he also idiotically admits that he's committed the offence of Tipping Off. He's an incredible imbecile as well as a clumsy criminal.
----- Original Message -----
From: Fleming, Mike
Sent: 02/19/14 10:49 PM
To: Tom Cahill
Subject: RE: Confidential Report for your Immediate Attention
Tom. To acknowledge receipt of your emails. My aim is twofold – both to satisfy myself that there is no breach of our ethics and compliance standards and to ensure that due process and contractual obligation was honoured with regards to yourself. In order to this, I need to take advice and guidance from the local management team to get their version of events. Obviously this process will take longer than 24 hours and I will not be pressured into an immediate response. My intentions are purely for a factual and lawful settlement. With that in mind, I would caution you with regards to making public defamatory statements that could compromise a positive outcome.
Regards, Mike |
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Sorry, I didn't put my email down properly.
I am currently using:
[email protected]
which is in place of my:
[email protected]
one which I'm locked out of. That's proving to be very unreliable, so also see:
[email protected]
I'm sorry for the ridiculousness of this, but it's not been my doing.
I still haven't heard back from them.
This is what happens when you allow the normal blue-chip company robots to do grown up jobs. They are the height of uselessness, which is OK for the yes man jobs but as you go higher up, a brain is required. Even the top man seems to be incapable of seeing that he's going to pop up all over the place when searches for his company or corruption are made, with his picture and he won't be able to do anything about it. It's all true of course. |
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Dear Readers,
I am putting more related content on a different thread, which also links to this thread.
The link is as follows:
http://www.scamexposure.com/scam-report/balfour-beatty-ansaldo-systems-jv-malaysia-conrad-fawcett-adam-stuart-amp-graham-donald-bribery-c165358.html
I'm due to go to speak to the police tomorrow--
(as you'll be able to read more about by following the link, and I'm told that 'my boss' is going to be attending. It isn't how I'd envisaged things turning out, and I have to say, I'd be very surprised if whoever they think my boss is turns up. Of course, when dealing with retards, they might go and do something totally out of the ball park, such as turn up and try and say I've done some crime or attempt to gain sympathy and a free pass for their crimes by saying I've got a bad attitude--anything's possible when retards are concerned. I don't mean to tempt fate, but the possibilities of an attempt to intimidate me is also a very real possibility. For those not familiar with the construction industry phonology (like psychology, but where there's less brains than's needed to psychoanalyse), when someone doesn't go along with their idiocy, which has kept them working at ten percent efficiency on really long days, away from their families for their entire lives, they do have a habit of losing their minds and all semblance of control, due to cognitive dissonance (using cognitive in its most liberal application, of course)--
).
I'm taking a bit of a chance posting this as they might read it, but on the other hand, they've got a very low level of intellect (largely due to the retardation which comes from being under a lot of stress, which we all get) so they'll be hard pushed to benefit from anything I've said here.
Styand by for further updates---see the other thread from now on. |
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| correction: "phonology" shouldn't be there. It should say "plonkology" as per plonker, ploker psychology. |
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