Sometimes you have to wonder what went on in the minds of the cabinet members when they made their decisions affecting the entire country.
Were they thinking at all? Or did they just go along with whatever decision had already been made for them?
I mean, look at the rice-pledging scheme. After repeatedly denying that it would incur huge losses as many people had warned, they are now forced to go through the humiliating experience of acknowledging the fact and downscaling the programme.
This stubbornness came at a hefty price for the taxpayers _ a loss of at least 300 billion baht.
On Tuesday, these honourable members of the Yingluck Shinawatra cabinet gave the green light to yet another equally controversial scheme.
Their approval of a plan to borrow 314 billion baht for the water management and flood prevention programme promises to bring just as much, if not more, of a headache to the country.
Just like the rice-pledging scheme, the decision was made amid a crescendo of warnings.
Mind you, it's not just the environmentalists, whom the politicians don't listen to anyway, who created the noise. Many of the critics come from more neutral quarters such as academics and professional groups. Board members of the Engineering Institute of Thailand (EIT), for example, have voiced their concerns on various occasions about the undue haste to implement the programme. Did any of the men and women in the government listen? Apparently not.
On Monday, the institute called a press conference to express their concerns formally, hoping perhaps to knock some sense into the cabinet members before they decided on the scheme the next day.
EIT president Suwat Chaopricha beseeched the government to carefully consider all aspects of the programme and ensure that proper and lawful procedures are observed.
Otherwise, he said, "the public will lose confidence in other basic infrastructure projects such as the 2.2-trillion-baht programme".
As engineers, Mr Suwat said, he and fellow members had no objection to the programme in principle.
"The EIT wishes to see the programme succeed but only if it's based on engineering principles with a clearly defined framework. The problem with the programme is ... its implementation so far has not been straightforward and lacks any reasonable basis."
The programme, under the supervision of Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi, has been mired in murkiness from the beginning.
No one knows how the Water and Flood Management Committee (WFMC) came up with the 350-billion-baht figure. The committee has refused to reveal the methodology used in establishing the maximum bidding prices or the grading of technical proposals by the bidding companies.
Local people whose lives would be affected by some of the projects, particularly the construction of dams, have not been informed.
What is alarming to the critics is that the urgency of flood prevention has been used to bypass all safety and graft-prevention mechanisms.
The EIT agreed with other critics who pointed out that the turnkey, design-and-build approach, by which the winning contractors control every facet of the project, renders the principle of public participation meaningless.
The contractors are required to conduct feasibility studies, where needed, as well as health and environmental impact assessment studies. Nobody expects the contractors to find their projects unfeasible, or health and environmental impacts insurmountable, and jeopardise the contracts they have already won.
Whatever challenges exist will be overcome even if it means some safety measures have to be weakened or regulations evaded.
The EIT said Mr Plodprasop's panel has failed to apply strategic thinking by looking at how the programme's various "modules" relate to one another.
The most problematic module is A5, which is designed to divert flood water across several river basins to drain out through western Bangkok.
This calls for the construction of a 300km-long floodway, complete with roadways along it.
A more cynical mind would see this as an opportunity to boost property values along the roadways, giving undue advantage and undeserved gain to those possessing inside information to speculate on land.
Korea Water Resources Corp won the bid for this particular module at the maximum price of 153 billion baht.
An earlier study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency identified this module as unnecessary. A much shorter flood diversion channel could be built to achieve a similar objective at much lower cost.
Even Utain Shartpinyo, a former member of the government's water management council, has taken issue with the plan.
He said: "The building of roads and dykes will involve communities from northern and central Thailand, encompassing vast areas and covering hundreds of kilometres. Problems will surely arise."
A month ago, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) warned the government that the plan was susceptible to graft.
The commission identified problem areas as including the small number of bidders, the turnkey contracting approach, the limited time frame for project completion, and the exemption from regular bidding procedures.
Once the contracts are signed by the end of this month, any legal infractions that might have occurred would have been completed. The NACC would then be able to pursue further investigation if it so decides.
Another barrier awaiting the programme's implementation is a complaint filed by the Anti Global Warming Association with the Central Administrative Court. The court has set June 27 to deliver its verdict on whether to halt the programme.
In spite of warnings and threats, there are reasons to believe the government will push ahead with the programme. The rice-pledging scheme fiasco has apparently made no impression on the government ministers, least of all Mr Plodprasop.
And don't count on anyone in the government having the decency or moral courage to take responsibility if the programme fails, just as no one took the blame for the failure of the rice-pledging scheme.
Wasant Techawongtham is former news editor, Bangkok Post. He is currently a freelance writer and editorial director of Milky Way Press, a publishing house.