Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has innocently given away the never-stated reason why the government never has got on top of flood control and water management. He visited Trang late last week after the worst floods in the main town's recent history. In addition to the usual sympathy and government-sponsored aid to the hardest-hit victims, he surveyed some of the damage. That was when he remarked that he would order the dredging of the Trang River as an urgent project.
This is an obvious case of trying to make amends for a failure to attend to the original problem. Residents attended the prime minister's speech at Princess Chulabhorn's College on the outskirts of the province's main town. They did not offer much applause when Gen Prayut made his promise to order in the dredging equipment, however. They have been waiting for that promise to materialise for two years.
The sudden flooding of Trang occurred on Dec 3. And it took place because of a double-barrelled problem that residents said should have been prevented. The floodwaters came from behind two reinforced Trang River embankments above the town. Unrelenting rain and thunderstorms had pounded the region for days, and the buildup caused pressure that led the embankments to collapse. Then, as the torrents overflowed, there was no place for runoff -- because the river had not been dredged as promised for so long.
The result was disastrous. Trang residents said the flooding was the worst they ever had seen. Water rose 30 centimetres within minutes of the breaching of the river bank, and then continued to surge. Within hours, parts of the main town and its suburbs were as much as two metres underwater. Houses in several villages were flooded to their rooftops.
The exact reason Trang waited for the dredging crews has not been explained. Gen Prayut didn't even try. He promised the meeting that he would make sure that his government now would "push ahead with ongoing projects in Trang so they materialise". That seems to say that while there were promises, no actual plans have ever existed to dredge the Trang River. Or perhaps the plans existed without any timetable and simply gathered dust.
Every government of recent decades has talked of the need for a national plan for flood control and water management. But the country has continued to run its thankfully bountiful water assets like a spendthrift handles his finances. For far too many years the country has lived in an unacceptably dangerous cycle. There is drought in the early part of the year, floods in the late part. "Too little or too much" is no way to manage the water supplies of the nation.
This is not a trivial matter. At one point, in the junta's earliest days, it appeared that Gen Prayut was going to proceed with the extensive water management scheme from the government it overthrew. That plan, if it ever even existed, has been abandoned. Nor is there an actual, coherent master plan that has been revealed to the public.
The Prayut regime has poured well over one trillion baht into infrastructure that is centred virtually entirely on Bangkok. But despite the promises made almost three years ago, there is really no sign of a national water management plan. This is despite the obvious need for one. The late days of the Yingluck government spoke of such a need, but the 2014 coup tore up most of that administration's projects -- some were controversial. Certainly Bangkok desires more public transportation, but all of Thailand needs water in amounts that are neither flood nor drought. And this goal can be achieved only through a comprehensive plan, with transparent consultations with stakeholders in a bottom-up manner.