A Last Word On The Fire Truck Affair
Allow a few words on the fire truck and boat procurement scandal that shook and still shakes Bangkok administrations. A classic Thai zero sum game with losers only. Practically everybody involved has now been found guilty according to the National Counter Corruption Commission NCCC. But guilty of what?! (Check comments below for latest updates.)
The height of the scandal had “coincided” with the change of power in Bangkok and the ensuing power struggle between Thailand’s current two main forces. And there the punching bag was, Austrian company Steyr Daimler Puch, manufacturer of the pick-ups, trucks and boats – caught in the center of a textbook Thai power struggle and turned into a grateful scapegoat.
Steyr was accused of overcharging and breaching the contract … I had a talk back then with Steyr’s Bangkok office. The poor Austrians couldn’t believe what they were suddenly accused of. One accusation: According to the contract Steyr had to deliver imported cars. Not true, Steyr said: “The client had seen the “Made in Thailand” prototype.” A scandal was born.
“The client knew,” I was told, “that the empty chassis of the pick-ups would be produced in Thailand. The client knew that car maker Mitsubishi assembles that very model only in Thailand.” Steyr then exported the empty cars to Europe, where they were equipped with all the bells and whistles, and re-exported back to Thailand.
Steyr had even ordered the raw empty chassis at Mitsubishi’s European headquarters in London. As Mitsubishi produced the ordered vehicles solely in Thailand, they built them in Thailand – remember, the “Detroit of the East” … No magic to it, no hidden agenda. The buyer, said Steyr, was completely aware of this.
The Austrians became crooks when the opposition took power in Bangkok. 176 shiny new fire trucks got stuck at customs. Because of unpaid import taxes. And it was “discovered” that the cars smaller, 65 pick-up trucks were produced by “Mitsubishi Motors Thailand.” What a surprise.
Steyr had paid Mitsubishi the equivalent of 14,000 euros for a single chassis. Exported to Europe, equipped with state-of-the-art gear and re-exported to Thailand the final price amounted to about 110,000 euros per unit. Included in this price were spare parts and a half-year training for 800 people.
The Austrians got finally paid for doing what they had to do: fulfilling their contract. While Bangkok governor Apirak Kosayodhin has now been found guilty of wrongdoing for fulfilling Bangkok’s part of the deal: paying the bill; as per the buying contract signed by then-Bangkok governor Samak Sundaravej.
Nobody to this day has any idea about actual corruption involved. But if you just shout loud enough and you got a scandal.
Are the fire trucks and boats actually in service?!
Congratulations … for doing what the Thai medias were unable to do: take a phone and call the damned local office of the damned Austrian company to listen to their version.
I guess local calls are too expensives: mai ru, mai mi pen ah, tu casa es my casa.
However … you might be a little too fast with your conclusions.
It’s rather unlikely that the supplier would tell you: “Yes AbFab Bangkok, I confirm, we did it, we are rotten, corrupted, but hell, we had a lot of fun with this pig of Samak, hell yeah … Apirak was a nice guy too. This sucker paid us quickly leo leo, but hey, otherwise he wouldn’t have received his check.”
I mean, this kind of stuff, right?
Due to the environment in Thailand, it’s almost impossible that this “deal” was not corrupted in a way or in another … You know it, everybody knows it.
People and the medias might have been misleaded by the scandal of “made in” or “not made in” … but this is a red herring.
The usual Thai conundrum, the classic bordello of facts and minds …
The real question is: How much kick back, under the table, the supplier or his middle-men in Thailand have paid to officials (whoever) in Thailand to get the market.
That’s all. Period.
The rest is pure rhetoric and classic Thai smoke and mirror, mixed of course with political agenda (“let’s nail Samak … ah it changed… so let’s nail Apirak”).
But again, the only real question is: How much ?
TC -
Thank you for pointing out the general worthlessness of the Thai media, which chooses to live in the alternative universe of rumour and innuendo rather than the real world of facts and evidence.
This is what would happen in the real world.
Government has a need like fire trucks.
Government has a process to procure fire trucks, usually a process that is transparent and goes to public bid. That process is usually standardized. The plans and specs are clear as day before the contract is bid or negotiated.
Many companies bid on the contract, according to the specs.
Qualified lowest bidder wins.
Vendor delivers, government pays. Everybody happy. Next project.
Believe it or not, Thailand does have a process like I have pointed out. But the worthless Thai media refuses to actually do any investigation into the process. Easy to check. Was the contract filled on time and on budget? Was it the lowest bid? If it looks like the deal was dodgy, do a comparable. In other words, call the vendor and ask their prices, go to the competitors and do the same. Easy. But like TC pointed out, a lazy reporter has to pick up a phone, an editor has to make his reporter pick up the phone.
Another thing that seems weird about this project is why is the Governor of Bangkok signing off on procurement deals personally? Again, in the real world, not the Thai world, the budget for fire trucks would be determined long before the contract was negotiated or bidded on.
One last thing: If the fire truck deal was based on fraud, that would make the contract void or voidable. Apirak’s excuse is lame. I can’t think of any court in any civilized country on planet earth that would compel a government agency to honor a contract that was either compelled under duress or was based on fraudulent representations or the specs weren’t adhered to.
The core issue as I see it: The old administration was preoccupied with pinning corruption scandals on the new administration.
A proactive tit-for-tat.
BangkokDan
Well, let us hope the NCCC is aware of this. Or do I smell a political ruling?
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[...] A Last Word On The Fire Truck Affair Nobody to this day has any idea about actual corruption involved. But if you just shout loud enough and you got a scandal. Quote: [...]
“Absolutely Bangkok” commentary, which carry a distinct shade of red, was inviting for a rebuttal.
But after reading comments by ThaiCrisis and Fonzi (TJTS), which covered the substance of the fire truck scandal, I could not expand on the matter any further.
Hi guys …
Ink on Bangkok Post Forum has done the numbers … something I failed to think of …
I believe he is quite unbiassed but he ends up with a missing Bt 5.1 billion.
I need to keep thinking but does anyone have any further input … is his 315 wrong, are the Steyr figures quoted above subject to some other interpretation, what was the exchange rate that was agreed?
[110,000.00 x 43.82 = 4,820,200.00 x 315 = 1,518,363,000.00]
If the truck’s final selling price is 110,000 euros per unit as stated by Steyr, that makes it roughly Bt 4.8 million per unit. 315 trucks would yield a total extended price of roughly Bt 1.5 billion. This would actually be a bargain. But since this was supposedly a Bt 6.6 billion deal, there appears to be some fiscal gymnastics somewhere. How did it go from Bt 1.5 billion to Bt 6.6 billion?
Thanks for the math David, but I did not mention all the items in the post.
I took the Mitsubishi pick-ups as a sample. The bigger part of the 315 units were more expensive fire fighting trucks. The pick-ups amounted to roughly 10% of the total amount.
And you’ll also have to include the boats.
But now take this, just got this information:
Half of the ordered vehicles are still stuck at customs!!!
As Apirak didn’t pay storage fees amounting to roughly 200 million baht by now.
Those vehicles haven’t been used nor serviced since their arrival two years ago … Most are probably bust by now in this climate. Engines never ignited, sealings drying out … Got this from a source who maintains the other half of the fleet.
Now that’s the scandal, isn’t it?!?
Apirak didn’t dare to get the 200 million, he just ignored the whole affair, as he’d been accused of you know what.
BangkokDan
Hey Bangkok Dan …
Thank you for your great work in continuing to dig highly relevant information out.
For your info the other forum this is being blogged on is:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=805&p=10708#p10708
Ink is a contracts guy that traced Supreme Court rulings on the Land case and is generally very diligent … like you …
Anyway, I hope it’s OK I have given your ref and latest info on that blog and we will run with it as hard as possible in cooperation with you.
Meanwhile we are trying to verify the contract price as close as possible, are you able to give us enough to closely calculate the real figures?
I rather think it’s up to the Thai media to start doing their work David!
BangkokDan
Yes … they should already be doing the work.
Let’s hope that like so many stories this doesn’t just get swallowed up in shallow reports while those of us that really want to understand what is going on are waiting for facts.
If we have the facts we can form considered opinions and in a democratic state call attention if things are flakey and have some small control of our destinies.
Thanks for your excellent reporting.
When I arrived in bangkok in May 1975, my wife and I stayed for the first few weeks at the New Imperial Hotel on soi Ruam Rudee near the American Embassy. The hotel had been rebuilt a year or two previous after a disasterous fire in which several people were killed.
The story went that when the fire trucks arrived, the hotel had to negotiate a price with the firemen before they would proceed to put out the fire.
The last time I was back in Bangkok, in 1982, I stayed at the New Imperial, which had again been rebuilt into a First class type hotel-though the girls were allowed free reign.
gary fouse
DEA Bangkok 1975-78
[...] just shout loud enough and you got a scandal. Are the fire trucks and boats actually in service?! A Last Word On The Fire Truck Affair [...]
[...] Bangkok has an interesting post on the fire truck scandal – NCCC found everyone guilty. Key excerpt:The Austrians became crooks [...]
[...] Apirak be in prison for his role in the firetrucks corruption? Magic roundabout is right. A Last Word On The Fire Truck Affair "The Austrians got finally paid for doing what they had to do: fulfilling their contract. [...]
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