Friday, December 17, 2010

Renovating an industrial premise [2]

I had a difficult time to find a contractor to renovate my industrial premise. Most of them quoted over $70,000 to renovate and furnish a premise of 1,600 s.f, of which only 1,300 sf need to be furnished.

I finally decided to scale down the work and managed to appoint a contractor at a more affordable cost. It still cost a lot of money, including the fee of $3,500 payable for "fire safety".  I sent my feedback to the Pro-Enterprise Panel, but they have still not acknowledged it after a few days.

Over the past few days, I have to signed many forms to different agencies. It seems to be quite complicated and time consuming to fill up these forms.

It is a hassle to apply to open an account for utilities. The form asked me to state the KVA of the power supply. I am not an engineer, so I do not know how to provide this information. My staff called the hotline of Power Supply and was told to get the KVA from the developer. The call to the developer's office was answered by someone who does not know the KVA. They will get someone to call back. I bet they will forget about calling back, which is quite typical of the standard of customer service in Singapore.

The form also asked for the date of incorporation of my company. I do not understand why this information is needed by Power Supply. So, I have to call my company secretary to find out this information.

Singapore has bred many people who are insensitive to the hassle and expenses cause to other people through their requirements. Some of these cost are imposed directly (through the fees that have to be paid), and some are borne indirectly (through the wasted time and work).

I shall write to the Pro-Enterprise Panel again. I do not expect them to acknowledge my feedback, but I will still write.

Tan Kin Lian

11 comments:

Tan Kin Lian said...

I am now asked to send a photocopy of my NRIC and the registration certificate of my company.

Why don't Power Supply ask for other documents as well - they might as well keep an entire folders of all of my documents.

dsowerg said...

SP Services needs to know who to go after if you default on your payment.

Anyway, all the documents required are on SP Services website. Maybe you should have read the list first?

http://services.spservices.sg/cs_services_open-acc.htm#NonResidentialAccUnderCompany

captaincaveman said...

It is quite common to see companies or government agencies asking/requesting irrelevant questions/information. Most of the time, I just give them rubbish information on things that I think is irrelevant. The best part is they will accept the rubbish information without any doubt.

Nobody interested to make changes because it is always safe to just follow blindly and collect the 3 months bonuse at the end of the year. No work and easy money. Why not?

Unknown said...

recently i took the trouble to provide feedback on a website that is very diffucult to use. after receiving my feedback e mail, they asked me for my full name. ic number, phone no and addresss instead of spending time to look at my feedback.

spavic said...

There are many errors and redundant information required on the websites and forms of the processes required by the government.

For example, many forms in the government sector still ask for your pager number... did you know that?

With all the amount of money they had spent on content management systems and single sign on systems i wonder why they can be less wasteful of taxpayers' time.

Their time is precious and we have to conform. Our time not precious but they want us to work more and pay more tax.

Raymond said...

Hi,

In my opinion, when they asked for your Full name, NRI, phone no and address is to cover themselves in case that your feedbacks do not work or stupid.

If it is a good idea, I am sure that they will not write to you and inform you that it was your ideas or thank you for suggestions that have made the improvements to their systems or work flow.

Cheers
Raymond

michael13 said...

My observation points to a worrying trend that our government machinery is mostly in 'the comfort zone' in the past ten(10)years. Somehow, some of the top leaders believe that Singapore's continued progress and prosperity can depend on our liberal immigration policies - through injections of foreign workers and talents.

Very sad to note that for any policies/schemes to work well, the devils are in the details. Unfortunately, the tops have lost touch with the mass ground to grasp those juices of details. They prefer to concentrate on the so-called 'BIG PICTURES', e.g. how to grow our GDP more aggressively so that it can fit in to well-established salary's formula - a big fat pay and bonus, years in and years out.

ron said...

Ha! Ha!

If you can navigate and solve these issues to start your business, then you are capable to proceed into this exclusive club!

Feedback is not a requirement
Its just like having a staff suggestion box.. only sweet wrappers get stuffed into it.

Unknown said...

Raymond, I once gave feedback to a cinema chain. They wrote to thank me and gave me 2 free cinema tickets and they also made the changes proposed by me. So not all are deadend type.

Falcon said...

Haven't you heard about "The exception proves the rule"

C H Yak said...

Dear Mr Tan

This is to give you moral support.

Imagine I work for more than 20 yrs facing these stuff you are facing...the biggest project with more than 400 subcontractors...and similar problems.

Yet I have no advice on "shortcuts" for you. Hahaha

For those who read this, support my blog :-
http://de-leviathan.blogspot.com/

If we cut all these "shits", Singapore's productivity will not only be boosted by just 2% called for by the NTUC...I guarantee it will be at least 6%...And there is no need for big debate on this topic in Parliament...Hahaha.

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