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| Laem Chabang Port – An Illustration of Thailand’s Poor Performance in Corruption Rankings |
| UPDATE : 20 November 2009 |
The Laem Chabang Port is owned by the Port Authority of Thailand, and consists of many zones of docks. Zone A consists of 6 docks namely docks A0-A5; Zone B consists of 5 docks namely B1-B5; Zone C consists of 4 docks namely C0-C3; Zone D consists of 3 docks namely D1-D3. There are also other associated projects including the warehouse for dangerous products, a navy yard, and a ship yard.
The problem lies in dock A0, at which a particular private company was awarded the State concession to manage as of October 4th, 2004, with a contract of 30 years. When there were talks about the possibility of this State concession, the process was to proceed through the Transport Ministry, which was to follow a 1992 Enactment concerning the auction for State concessions under the discretion of a committee.
However, the method of awarding the concession was suspiciously changed in 2004 to a selection process to hire a private company to manage the dock, with clearly defined benefits for the State. And these benefits are the main reasons for all the questions over the years.
Through the selection process, the private company clearly offered far less revenue per year to the Port Authority of Thailand. As such, it is inevitable that the people in a country plagued by corruption would question why the process of awarding the State concession had to change, from a transparent committee-based auction according to an Enactment, to a selection process in which the State clearly loses benefits.
Many experts say the auction would have guaranteed annual revenue of 600 million baht for the Port of Authority of Thailand, while through the selection process, the State is receiving just 30 million baht of annual revenue. As the contract with the private company lasts for 30 years, the State would end up losing 20 billion baht in revenue. Since the concession was awarded in 2004, the State has already lost more than 3 billion baht.
What happened? How did happen? How can a process designated by law be avoided to cause the State to lose this much revenue? Who’s going to be held accountable?
It’s worth noting that at the time in which this contract was signed, it was the fugitive and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s administration running the country. As he was guilty of a corruption case, and has continually been criticized for setting up corruption schemes, the public could not help but wonder who, in that administration, allowed the private company to benefit so greatly and unfairly from a State concession.
Such questions demand immediate answers, unless the Government wants this case to go down the same path the Map Ta Phut industrial estate has. In the end, all Thais will hold the Port Authority of Thailand accountable, unless an acceptable justification is issued.
This article was written to bring out an example of a popular case of potential corruption in light of the announcement by Transparency International that Thailand has dropped from 80th to 84th place out of 180 countries in the World in terms of being corruption free this year. This State concession of dock A0 reminds us that, in deed, Thailand is far from being a corruption free country.
from Post Today Newspaper, pg.A9
November 19th, 2009 edition
by Local News Team, Post Today
rewritten by Patcharapol Jitramontree
patcharapol@tannetwork.tv
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