Is the Marina Barrage really working?

Its time for government officials to tell us the truth.

In a TODAY interview on 12th of July, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Dr Amy Khor said:

The Marina Barrage reservoir did help in preventing a bigger disaster during the recent flash floods…The Government has spent at least $2 billion to improve the drainage system and will continue to review the current system, she said.

As for the impact of climate change on rainfall patterns, Dr Khor said that the Government had undertaken a vulnerability study but rainfall patterns were difficult to predict and there was a need to wait for new inputs on improving forecasting method.

Oh really? Then how is that there are 3 floods in a month?

Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim then said that the first flood in Orchard Road was caused by debris, but then change his tune in Parliament, saying that the Stamford Canal was actually ‘not adequate and could not drain quickly enough’

So which is which? And my question to both Dr Khor and Dr Ibrahim is: Is the Marina Barrage actually doing it’s job?

I like what Siew Kum Hong wrote in his post, ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’:

Nevermind that the original reason given by Dr Yaacob for the first Orchard flood was that the Stamford Canal was blocked, but otherwise it was adequate — but now actually it was not adequate and could not drain quickly enough (front page news today). Nevermind that it took three, yes three, floods in two months before our million-dollar salarymen could figure out that it might be a good idea to issue public warnings about potential flooding (and even now that’s still not been decided.