Following the incident at Sungai Balung in Tawau, Sabah which claimed the lives of two Universiti Brunei Darussalam students, I would like to express my deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims. Al-Fatihah.

I regret to say that in my personal opinion the cause of this incident is no different from that of the tragic helicopter accident in the Belait area that occurred a day before the start of the fasting month last year. It's all about complacency which to me should be blamed on procedural system and people who run the organisation.

By looking at the photo published in the Sunday Borneo Bulletin, March 3, 2013 under the title "Students attempting to cross the `treacherous' river", I was really shocked to see safety being neglected.

None of the students were wearing any life-vests or at least a rope tied to their body. If students are working in such conditions knowing that it's a river ... what safety precautions are taken? During so many such trips previously has any student been provided with life-vest in such situations?

Isn't there such a procedure in UBD stating that safety should be given extreme attention when organising any field trips and all the mandatory steps are to be followed?

Was there a safety officer for that trip? When JIS organises field trips, I always notice they give top priority to the safety of the students even to the point that the students are even told to put on the seat belts whilst in the bus.

Do we construe this as a failure of the UBD management or administration? It's time to have the right people at the right place backed with professional qualifications.

It's about time we look into our system in general to find out why so many professional people have ended up holding high posts totally irrelevant to their professional qualifications?