Minister denies Phuket 'robbed' of ICEC 2.6bn baht

Phuket Gazette

Woravat Auapinyakul, the Minister Attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, told Phuket residents not to worry about the 2.6 billion baht originally intended for building the Phuket ICEC as the government will put it to good use. Photo: Kritsada Mueanhawong

PHUKET: -- The Minister Attached to the Prime Minister’s Office has denied claims that the government has “stolen” the 2.6 billion baht sequestered from the now-shelved plan to build a Phuket International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC).

In Phuket on Saturday to oversee the preparations for the upcoming three-day Andaman Culture Festival, to be opened by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in person on November 9, Minister Woravat Auapinyakul said the funds had yet to be allocated to another project, but insisted the funds will be put to good use.

“We did not ‘steal’ the project. We cannot continue with it because it failed to pass its Environmental Impact Assessment [EIA] requirements; it failed that because the proposed site was at Baan Mai Khao, which is the site of Phuket’s last mangrove forest,” Mr Woravat told the Phuket Gazette.

Mr Woravat’s explanation laid the responsibility of the decision to shelve the Phuket ICEC squarely with the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP), a fully dependent department under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE).

However, MNRE Minister Preecha Rengsomboonsuk has remained publicly silent on the issue, as has Prime Minister Yingluck, despite the PM being lobbied to review the decision as she entered the mobile Cabinet meeting on Koh Samui on October 21.

Mr Woravat’s support for the assertion that Mai Khao is Phuket’s last remaining virgin mangrove forest also follows Phuket MP Anchalee Vanich Thepabutra last week calling for the Cabinet to answer to Parliament why the project was cancelled and to explain where the funds had been redirected to.

“The government doesn’t want Phuket residents to focus on the construction of the ICEC as the only big thing that was going to happen to develop the province,” Mr Woravat told the Gazette.

“There are several other aspects of Phuket that also require development. We should look at the overall picture of the province and see what really needs to be improved.

“Perhaps it would be better to spend the budget on building more hospitals. Cabinet already agrees that medical services throughout Southern Thailand need improvement,” Mr Woravat suggested.

“Or we could spend it on developing ‘the quality of provincial infrastructure’,” he added.

Source: http://www.phuketgaz...baht-19269.html

-- Phuket Gazette 2012-10-29

Very good news! No one need this ICEC in Maikhaw. Greedy Anchalee has to look for a new slaughter cattle......

Don't worry - the money will be put to god use. Last you'll see of it anyway...

Comedy gold.......

Woravat Auapinyakul, the Minister Attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, told Phuket residents not to worry about the 2.6 billion baht originally intended for building the Phuket ICEC as the government will put it to good use.

Wait Thailand actually does Environmental Impact Studies? Since when? More pertinent why did this project fail (a fictitious) study?

Wait Thailand actually does Environmental Impact Studies? Since when? More pertinent why did this project fail (a fictitious) study?

Sure they do environmental studies, they are a good money spinner, so good they often do two or three just to be sure.

This project supposedly failed because.......

“The Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning [ONEP] has not approved the project because there was a problem with the EIA. They believed that the site where the ICEC was proposed to be built upon is a beach where turtles lay their eggs and as the last remaining ‘pristine’ mangrove forest in Phuket – that it should be a protected area,”he said.

Don't worry - the money will be put to god use. Last you'll see of it anyway...

Think not. Next year the government politicians will have new cars and some new houses. And better figures in their bank accounts.