Hello everyone, random Dominican guy here that has taken an interest in Singapore, I've been reading a lot about it and its history, hope I can visit some day, looks like an awesome country from the distance. Anyways I wanted to ask you guys what's the reason for the MRT lines to be so expensive, according to wikipedia the Cross Island Line is going to cost S$40.6b(US$30b), that's a lot of money.

Our metro system in Santo Domingo I think the 2 lines we have, we've invested less than US$5b(probably should've been cheaper, but we have a lot of corruption), yes our stations are really spartan and plain, while Singaporeans' are very fancy, artistic and seem to have shops and other services, but still think that's a lot of money for the MRT lines, is it because of labor cost, the geology of the terrain, NYMBIsm?

Thanks for any answer, no criticism intended, I just want to understand things better. Thanks