Three major projects will be used as test cases for a government campaign to clamp down on corruption in state investments, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Friday.
Workers construct a tunnel under the Chao Phraya River for the Blue Line. The mass-transit line is one of the three large state investment projects that will be used as a model for a system to end corruption. (Photo by Patipat Janthong)
Declaring his determination to wipe out bribery, he said transparency at every stage would be applied to a plan to buy new buses by the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), the expansion of the Blue Line by the Mass Rapid Transit Authority, and the expansion of Suvarnahbumi airport by Airports of Thailand.
For the bus and mass-transit projects, the two state agencies involved and all businesses submitting price quotations must sign "Integrity Pacts" and pledge in the contract to refuse bribery and allow scrutiny at every stage of a project.
"The procuring agency and the entity awarded the contract must allow probes by independent panels manned by experts or those from the civil society sector," the prime minister said.
The airport expansion, meanwhile, will be the first one in Thailand to be managed under guidelines laid down by the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST), an international non-profit organisation founded in 2011.
"The use of CoST will then be expanded to cover the projects of other state enterprises," Gen Prayut said in his weekly televised address on Friday evening.
The BMTA is planning to buy 3,183 natural gas-powered buses with a planned budget of 13 billion baht to replace its ageing fleet in an attempt to improve service and revenue. The median price could be announced next week and bidding is expected in January. A contract to deliver the first lot of 489 buses could be signed as early as February.
The bus project has faced years of delays under previous governments because of concerns about corruption and collusion between politicians backing the project and certain manufacturers.
On the Blue Line from Hua Lamphong to Bang Khae and Bang Sue to Tha Phra, civil work is now under way on the underground rail line from Bang Sue to the Bangkok central railway station. Bidding for the operation of the system is the next step.
Gen Prayut said the project to expand congested Suvarnabhumi airport would also require disclosure of all construction details to ensure that the materials are in line with internationally accepted standards.
"Without this, accusations — both factual and false — will keep being thrown back and forth between those being accused of graft," he said.
The construction of the airport was plagued by corruption, cost overruns and accusations of the use of substandard or overpriced materials, from landfill to trolleys, from the start to its opening in 2006.
Airports of Thailand Plc plans to expand the complex to lift passenger handling capacity from 45 million a year now to 60 million at an estimated cost of 66 billion baht. The expansion includes a new terminal and aprons.
The projects under scrutiny will underline the government's pledge to wipe out corruption as Gen Prayut pledged when he seized power in the coup in May.
In the most recent Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, Thailand improved 17 places to 85th out of 175 countries this year. The country ranked third in Southeast Asia after Singapore and Malaysia.
But the prime minister said the government would not be carried away by the improvement and would show no complacency in calling for the public and private sectors to step up efforts to tackle the problem.
"Although Thailand's ranking improved in the eyes of the international organisation, the country still needs to strenuously tackle this problem," he said.
"All sectors need to pitch in and help to seriously solve this problem."