The Democrat Party will seek to oust the entire cabinet over alleged irregularities involving the 350-billion-baht water management projects.
Democrat MP Atthawich Suwanpakdi said yesterday the party's shadow cabinet intends to file a petition seeking the removal of the Yingluck Shinawatra cabinet because the bidding was not transparent.
He said the bidding process favoured a limited number of major enterprises which allowed the four firms that took part to collude on price.
Four companies _ ITD Power China Joint Venture, Korea Water Resources Corp (K-Water), Summit SUT Joint Venture and Loxley Joint Venture _ won the right to work on nine water management development modules for 290.93 billion baht.
The government later persuaded them to cut the price by around 6 billion baht.
Mr Atthawich said this constitutes a violation of the anti-price collusion law and a breach of the charter which calls for transparent and open bidding. The party will initiate a signature campaign this week before handing the motion to the Senate Speaker to submit it to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, he said. At least 120 MPs are needed to support an impeachment petition.
The impeachment bid is expected to be followed by a no-confidence motion, Mr Atthawich said.
The opposition is considering a censure debate when parliament reconvenes in August, he said.
Mr Atthawich said the Democrat Party also found the government's decision to slash the paddy pledging ceiling price disappointing.
The National Rice Policy Committee has decided to slash the paddy pledging ceiling price to 12,000 baht a tonne from 15,000 and limit the amount which can be pledged a year to 500,000 baht per household.
He said the move not only goes against government policy presented to parliament, but will also hurt rice farmers while failing to rein in corruption which is the scheme's major flaw.
Mr Atthawich said the party is reviewing the 136-billion-baht loss resulting from the scheme that the government has admitted, and will show the public how this figure cannot be right. "We are sure the losses from the rice-pledging scheme stand at about 260 billion baht. Some figures have been hidden," he said.