Corruption is Rife!

Kia Ora,

Well work inside the Christchurch CBD Red Zone is finished & it got too busy to keep up the blog & since then a little task as well as finding a new premises then moving(still in progress).

One thing the earthquakes in Christchurch have exposed corrupt practices are rife in New Zealand.

Before writing a previous post commenting on corruption I searched it on the internet as the dictionary I had seemed to have a narrow view. What came back in the first two searches showed that nine out of ten definitions hardly alluded to money if at all but more were words like "make things worse" or "lack of integrity". A third search without changing the search words suddenly only referred to money until the second page. I tend to go with the first two searches.

In a recent debate people kept insisting on a set definition but that allows those in charge to then carryout corrupt practices that frustrate but for some reason fall into gray areas that don't require them to answer for their actions.

The reason though I am moving is due to what I consider a corrupt practice making the place I reside unsafe although it appears to only have about 25 superficial cracks on the outside with one large crack in the warehouse.

After the September 4th 2010 Earthquake it was noticed there was sand come up out front. The owners said "oh yes it has sand infill".

Would of never signed the lease had I been aware of that having been part of civil defence & knowing that liquifaction was likely when sand base is under your property.

But it gets worse. Whilst working recently we had the luck to work along side a structural engineer.

What they highlighted has also been recently highlighted by Far North Mayor & engineer Wayne Brown. He said he was shocked by the poor building standards in residential houses in Christchurch, which mirrored the comment by the US USAR team member to me about our high rises.

In the 'Press' article highlighting comments from Brown the Department of Building & Housing commented the quake had highlighted some bad buildign practices peculiar to Christchurch such as unreinforced concrete slabs under residential houses.

When I said sand infill the engineer raised his eyes & said "so what else has happened?" or words to that effect. Basically when the big crack appeared the rear wall became concave as floor sloped down that side with wall in at the top. Few weeks later there was a thump & on inspection a second crack had appeared at right angles to the major one & wall straightened itself fully over the next week.

As the saying goes there is more & this is where you start to see the corruption.

Allegedly many years ago the City council tried to stop Developers from using sand infill. The theory is sand under your concrete slab makes it stronger so you don't have to use as much reinforcing or as comments from department no reinforcing.

Since the Council didn't have the resources to fight the developers in court so I am told they come up with a compromise where it would only be allowed to be used in single story residential premises.

Two issues there. Sand becomes a form of liquifaction during the pressure from an earthquake & you could see that in the warehouseas cracked area had risen above the rest of the floor. What we have noticed around Christchurch is when liquifaction occurs somewhere it leaves what becomes a sink hole as the shaking causes the light soil like silt or sand to move to one spot leaving a gap where the light soil was prior to the shake.

Secondly is that the property I had leased for my business was an apartment/office/warehouse which is two stories. So somewhere along the line this dodgy practice has morphed into been Ok for commercial two stories.

The article refers to several other questionable practices in residential housing with no accounting of the bad practices in commercial or high rise premises.

Some very new buildings such as the IRD building or CBS areana have stood up well from anecdotal comment. The other significantly have been from anecdotal comment those built by the Ministry of Works which was criticised for over engineering anything it built but would of been using the lessons of the 1931 Napier earthquake.

Everything else in between I would be very suspicious off until a full check has been done. Thats a proper check not the Mickey mouse ones we have been getting on direction from the Body corporate. It also seems from what we have seen in the Red Zone that is an engineer has a vested interest then the report on a building is vastly different to that of an independant engineer.

Seems we quickly forget the lessons then corruptly short cut everything we can whick in the long run proves more expensive in lives. Funny thing is it is claimed these bad practices were a result that earthquakes were unlikely in Christchurch. Civil Defence though had maps & projections (shown to us when you joined back in 90's not to mention the 1996 documentary)of likely damage to Christchurch in the event of the big quake expected on the Alpine fault or a Tsaunami.

As bad as Civil Defences response has been to the Canterbury earthquakes they did try to minimize effects but were given not much teeth or credence. They had to fight to keep the sand dunes at 5 metres when first lowered from 8 metres as people wanted them taken down completely to improve property prices.

Didn't help that many of their own people didn't take it seriously & still don't.

In the vein of making things worse that seems to be the one thing Civil Defence are doing well. There is no leadership & frustrations are growing. One thing everyone does in Christchurch is talk about the quake.

From a professional point of view I point out that this slow response is now the norm for diaster recovery around the world & tends to result in riots. Most are now saying they can see that happening here shortly unless the truth is put out there & real progress is made.

That is not the reaction you expect to get here. Prior to the February 22nd earthquake if you mentioned that was a possibility the stock answer would of been "not in Christchurch" or "not in New Zealand", someone actually said "New Zealand was now too PC for it to happen as everyone would be worried that they would upset someone".

Well that has all changed now. I have stayed on message it is just others response to it has changed & all due to corruption.

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