Flood assurances are not entirely convincing

After the Water and Flood Management Committee (WFMC) organised water flow testing in the western part of Bangkok to convince residents that the government would be able to prevent flooding this year, people were reassured to a certain extent.
However, they were not entirely convinced that massive inundation would not occur this year, noted Thai Rath.

The matter was made worse when a member of the committee came out publicly to criticise the government for not tackling the real source of the problems and wasting money on grandiose schemes.

There was also a conflict between the committee and opposition politicians who run the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), with each side accusing the other of not cooperating.

Opposition politicians said the testing was useless when all the infrastructure was not ready. The dispute became quite heated as everyone knew the BMA governor's term will end early next year and he wants to get re-elected.

When the national government is in conflict with the biggest local government controlled by the opposition party, people cannot rest easy knowing that last year's bad blood between the BMA and Pheu Thai government could flare up again, hindering flood management efforts.

Right now the country is facing heavy monsoon rains. The people are worried, watching news that several provinces in the North are being inundated as rivers overflow, even though there are no depressions or tropical storms blowing into Thailand.

The country's main river, the Chao Phraya, is overflowing its banks and flooding low-lying areas in several provinces, causing hardship to nearby residents.

What will happen if, in the next few weeks, tropical storms hit the country, bringing as much rain as last year?

Thai Rath felt it was right that the committee conducted the water flow tests in various Bangkok canals to collect scientific data. The data is valuable in designing and constructing appropriate infrastructure.

However, critics continue to say that the government is doing a PR job to shore up its image for having failed to prevent last year's massive floods.

Whatever the case, Thai Rath reminded the government not to panic upon seeing pictures of strong torrents tearing down levees and flooding Sukhothai's Muang municipality.

Now that the floodwater has arrived, all the conceived plans should be followed closely. The provincial governors, district chiefs, kamnan and local authorities along the main rivers must be notified to deal with coming floods.

What is even more important is that the WFMC members should resolve their differences, work together, closely follow the situation and be ready to issue timely warnings.

There should be one team to issue news about flooding.

Thai Rath also reminded the government to get serious about tackling endemic corruption in practically all projects, including paying compensation to flood victims. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is aware of this as she toured Nonthaburi and residents confronted her to help with delayed payments.

Thai Rath was concerned about the massive 350 billion baht budget for sustainable and permanent solutions to the floods in the medium and long term. The massive project is set to begin late this year.

If corruption continues to dominate, the infrastructure will not be as effective and strong as it should be.

In the latest development, Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi, who is also chairman of the WFMC, revealed on Wednesday that this year's rainfall is about 20% less than last year's. The only major river overflows are at Bang Ban district, Ayutthaya and Pa Mok district, Ang Thong, which are low-lying and prone to flooding every rainy season.

As for the flooding in Sukhothai's Muang municipality, Mr Plodprasop noted that water did not flow over the levee. Rather, the flood barrier was breached at the base, which had not been strengthened with concrete piles.

Mr Plodprasop assured the public that Nakhon Sawan would not flood as a new type of levee had been built there.

He was confident there would be no major flooding this year as all the big dams had released water and had adequate capacity.
Thailand 'not perfect'

In recent months, foreign institutes have rated Thailand against the rest of the world in terms of economic performance, tourism, innovation and corruption.

The rankings reflect foreigners' perceptions of Thailand, but what about the Thai people's own perceptions? Can we derive any benefits from global comparative rankings, asked Bancha Chumchaivej in Thai Rath.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) annually ranks the competitiveness of 144 countries. This year's rankings put Malaysia top of Asean (not counting highly developed Singapore which is No.2) at No.25 while Thailand is up one step at No.38 from last year's No.39.

Bancha noted the WEF mentions that Thailand's No.1 problem is government instability (changes in government too often and administrations which are sometimes not democratic), followed by corruption and inconsistent government policies (ministers and deputy ministers from the same party often don't provide the same message about policies).

What is noteworthy is that other Asean countries that ranked much further down the list have jumped significantly this year. The Philippines is up 10 places to No.65 and Cambodia jumped 13 to No.85.

INSEAD earlier ranked the innovation competitiveness of 141 countries for 2012. Singapore was ranked No.3 in the world, Hong Kong No.8 and South Korea No.21.

In Asean, again excluding Singapore, Malaysia was best at No.32 with an R&D budget at 0.6% of GDP. Thailand was ranked No.57 with only 0.2% of GDP for R&D, the same as Vietnam which was ranked No.76. Of course Thailand's GDP is larger than Vietnam's, so its R&D budget is higher in real terms.

American Express Travel & Leisure magazine holds an annual survey of its readers to rank the best tourist destination city in the world. Bangkok was ranked No.1 for the third year in a row, with a score of 89.87 out of 100.

Apart from Bangkok, no other city in Asean is ranked in the world's top ten, which is quite surprising. WEF ranked Malaysia as the best country in Asean in attracting tourists. Malaysia was ranked No.35 and attracted about 25 million tourists last year, while Thailand was ranked No.41 with 19 million tourists.

WEF noted Thailand's weakness was unsustainable natural environment, problems with tourist safety and inadequate IT infrastructure.

On the corruption front, Transparency International (TI) based in Germany announces its Corruption Perceptions Index every October, so the 2012 index is yet to appear. Looking at 2011, there were three countries in Asean less corrupt than Thailand with Singapore at No.5, Brunei at No.44 and Malaysia at No.60. Thailand was ranked No.80.

During a seminar on corruption on Sept 6, it was revealed that businesses had to pay up to 35-40% of a project's budget as "commission" to secure the contract. So it is no surprise that TI ranks Thailand so low.

Bancha wonders if Thailand will fare worse on the TI list this year. Wait until next month.
Prolonged debt woes

On Tuesday, the cabinet gave Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) approval to borrow 14.6 billion baht to pay off principal (1.16 billion) and interest (2.97 billion) for its bonds due in 2013. The BMTA's new borrowing will be guaranteed by the Finance Ministry, noted Nakarn Laohavilai, Post Today editor.

Mr Nakarn did not think too highly about the short-term solution to the BMTA's accumulated debt of about 70 billion baht because it is just a roll-over measure, borrowing new funds to pay off old debts.

In fact, the government could easily have wiped out the BMTA's huge debt if it had not engaged in populist policies. For example, the first-car policy is costing the state about 50 billion baht.

If the BMTA were debt-free, it could invest in a new, clean and efficient bus fleet, something more important than the first-car project which will worsen traffic and lift the fuel import bill.

Governments all over the world are emphasising public transport, not boosting the number of privately owned cars.

Sourced: bangkokpost