The massive flooding in 2011 was ranked by the World Bank as the fourth costliest natural disaster up until that year, surpassed only by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in the same year, the 1995 Kobe earthquake and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
But the worst aspect of that unprecedented flooding two years ago was not the loss of lives, property or the suffering of millions of people. It was the combination of utter incompetence on the part of the authorities in water resources management and handling of flood relief efforts, and massive corruption, which together exacerbated the problems.
Fortunately, there was no flood last year in the Central Plains thanks to Mother Nature, so all the hastily-built flood prevention projects such as flood walls along parts of the Chao Phraya River, around industrial estates and communities _ erected at an enormous cost _ have yet to show whether they are effective in coping with the next big flood. Or whether any sections of the flood walls along the river have already collapsed because of hasty and poor construction as no one seems to have bothered to check anymore.
It is hoped some lessons have been learned from that painful, soggy experience, at least in respect of the competency required to handle a disaster of such magnitude. But I am doubtful considering the way the 350 billion baht flood prevention and drought mitigation megaproject is being handled by the Water Management and Flood Mitigation Commission chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi.
The mega infrastructure project was thrown together in a hasty and unprofessional fashion so that it lacks a cohesive master plan, which is quite amazing for a project costing an estimated 350 billion baht. Architect Kaewsan Atibhodi notes that the megaproject is, in fact, a combination of dozens of dams, dikes, floodways, roads and monkey cheek projects bundled together to form one huge infrastructure plan.
Six groups of Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and Thai companies have been shortlisted to bid for the megaproject which is divided into 10 modules _ dams, monkey cheek or water retention areas, floodways and dikes.
Mr Kaewsan says there is a contract for each module and two Chinese and South Korean groups plan to bid for all the contracts. It is possible the Korean firms may be awarded the building of all the dam projects while the Chinese may win the floodway project estimated at 120 billion baht.
The floodway, or a new man-made canal with roads running parallel to the canals, is meant to divert water from the Chao Phraya River so that water will flow faster downstream into the Gulf, thus lessening the threat of flooding during the rainy season.
Imagine the Chao Phraya River basin. If the Chinese are to build a floodway and the Koreans are to construct one or two dams or dikes and the two groups do not coordinate with each other and have different concepts about flood or drought prevention because there is no master plan, we may end up with two projects which are incapable of tackling heavy flooding or alleviating drought.
No environmental or health impact assessment studies have been conducted for most of the projects which make up the megaproject, especially the floodway which is likely to affect a lot of people in the Chao Phraya River basin. Neither have public hearings been staged to sound out the opinions of the people to be affected by the projects.
Srisuwan Janya, president of the Association against Global Warming, has threatened to lodge a complaint with the Administrative Court to put on hold all the projects unless health and environmental impact assessment studies are conducted and public hearings staged.
The Democrats, meanwhile, will take the case to the Constitution Court to challenge the government's issuance of an executive decree to enable the Finance Ministry to seek the 350 billion baht in loans to fund the megaproject. They argue there is no urgency to justify the decree which was primarily intended to bypass parliamentary scrutiny.
Besides the looming legal proceedings in the Administrative Court and the Constitution Court which may put on hold the megaproject, the shoddy way the project is being treated by the government speaks volumes about the fact that it has not learned any lesson from the devastating flooding in 2011.
Veera Prateepchaikul is a former editor, Bangkok Post.