The Works Ministry conducted a thorough inspection of the 40-year-old Parliament building and discovered that rubbish had caused the building to leak.

Revealing this in the Dewan Rakyat today, Works Minister S Samy Vellu said discarded construction materials on the roof damaged the water proofing.

"The water proofing was sufficient, but it became dirty because of the garbage and all kinds of construction materials like pieces of wood and cement left behind on the roof and this caused the water proofing to be damaged and the roof to leak," he was quoted as saying by Bernama .

Samy Vellu was responding to a supplementary question from Dr Wee Ka Siong (BN-Ayer Hitam).

Wee wanted to know the action to be taken against the contractors who were negligent in their work and had caused the structural damage to the building.

The leakage at Parliament building during the rainy season recently was widely reported in the media. In the latest incident, water seeped into the press room two days ago.

Notice board

Meanwhile, Samy Vellu also quipped that he would put up a notice board on the roof with a warning not to throw rubbish there.

"If no one tampers with the water proofing, it won't leak. I'm not accusing anyone but rubbish was strewn all over.

"It's better for me to invite the MPs to have a look. If you want, I can show you the plan and explain how the damage occurred," he said.

Earlier, he said to prevent leakage at government buildings, the Public Works Department (PWD) had stepped up monitoring and supervision on construction work to ensure that the contractors did the job according to the specifications.

He said the department would also inspect government buildings more frequently and conduct a survey on the clients' satisfaction.

To avoid poor design and construction of infrastructure or government buildings, he said, the PWD had already enlisted its maintenance officers to join the project teams who would give input on the maintenance aspect of the designs.

"This will enable the infrastructures and buildings to take into account the comfort of the occupants as well as the maintenance aspect," he said.