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company management-owned within 10 to
15 years, with hopefully one-third owned
by management, one-third by the public
and one-third by Koh Brothers.”
Another aspect of the company is its
expertise in major infrastructure projects,
particularly regarding flood control and water
drainage. As a low-lying country with heavy
rainfall, Singapore can be prone to floods,
and there is a constant need for infrastructure
that can channel water and mitigate flood
damage. Koh Brothers has expertise in this
space, having won contracts for work such
as the Bukit Timah Canal, a S$99 million
infrastructure project that alleviates the
impact of flooding.
It also constructed the Changi Water
Reclamation Plant, a cutting-edge facility
for treating and recycling water. Opened by
Singapore’s Prime Minister, the plant handles
up to 176 million gallons of water a day
and rates as one of the highest-volume
water treatment facilities of its type in the
world. It was also an innovative project,
pioneering the stacking of treatment
technology to save space.
The group’s most high-profile water
project, however, is the Marina Barrage,
a freshwater reservoir that draws water from a dam built
across the 350-metre-wide Marina Channel. Four years
in construction, it covers an area of 10,000 hectares, of
the nation’s total of 72,000 hectares, and supplies a large
proportion of the country’s desalinated water. The barrage
construction involved a system of drainage pumps to displace
280 cubic metres of water passing through each second. This
system mitigates flooding in highly populated but low-lying
areas such as Geylang, Jalan Besar and Chinatown. “There
were a lot of challenges involved in that project,” Francis
says. “However, we handled all the challenges well and
learned from them. We established ourselves as a local
company that can undertake this kind of task.”
The project was given the Superior Achievement Award
at the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and
Scientists Annual Awards. It was only the second project
outside the US to claim the award in a decade. Tying in
with Koh Brothers’ interest in promoting healthy lifestyles,
the barrage has also created opportunities for kayaking and
boating on the now calm waters.
Francis is a leader who values creativity and innovation,
and he has a few tricks up his sleeve to get the creative ideas
flowing among his staff. “Normally, we use brainstorming
in terms of strategy and new methods of construction. We
also use it to consider risk management. A lot of technology
is now used widely across the world, not just in Singapore,
so it is important that we stay up to date on new methods
of construction that we can use here.