Cabinet approves fund to pay builder of Klong Dan project

Jonathan Fairfield · November 17, 2015

Cabinet approves fund to pay builder of Klong Dan project

BANGKOK:-- The cabinet today (Tuesday) approved a huge budget from the Central Fund to be used to pay the constructor of the Klong Dan water treatment project in Samut Prakan as ordered by the Supreme Administrative Court.

The special budget was requested by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment after the ministry lost the case to the builder of the corruption-riddled project.

As ordered by the court, the payments will be made in three instalments: 3,174.5 million baht to be paid within November 21; 2,380.9 million baht to be paid within next May 21; and the final instalment of 2,380.9 million baht within November 21 next year.

Former deputy interior minister Vatana Asavahame who was in charge of the Land Department then illegally acquired land and sold them to the Pollution Control Department to be used as the construction site at inflated prices. Several other officials alleged to be involved in the scam have been sentenced to imprisonment. Vatana escaped before the reading of the verdict.

Government spokesman Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha told his cabinet that the Klong Dan project should serve a lesson about how corruption has damaged the country and that this should not be repeated.

The cabinet also the Waste Water Management Organisation to see to it how the Klong Dan waste water treatment plant can be utilized.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/cabinet-approves-fund-to-pay-builder-of-klong-dan-project

-- Thai PBS 2015-11-17

plachon · November 17, 2015

As I understand it, Vatana Asavahame was in cahoots with the builders (if not one and the same directly) to bump up the costs of construction, as well as selling publically-owned land (that he had magically turned into his own private land) to the government at more ridiculously inflated prices to make humungous profits from this project, which were then laundered through a host of other personal projects, including casinos in Cambodia. So by paying off the constructor, the govt is in fact condoning corruption and it shows Prayuth is only underlining the lesson that corruption pays in Thailand and will be repeated ad infinitum.

This project not only involved the corruption of govt officials and politicians, but also corporate corruption and that of the Asian Development Bank, which gave the original loan to the government to pay for this crazy project. Which as can be seen in the photo, is now rapidly sinking under the waters of the Gulf of Thailand, as local villagers always warned it would, when their mangroves were destroyed to build it. Incredible, but not only corruption pays, but also technical incompetency by all the parties involved with this stinking project, from beginning to end.