BMA to fix fire engines left to rot in storage for 10 years
The City Hall is repairing 176 unused fire engines after leaving them in a warehouse compound for 10 years during a legal dispute surrounding the controversial purchase.
Deputy Bangkok governor Pol Gen Assawin Kwanmuang said yesterday he was glad to see the vehicles bring repaired, attributing the decision to the latest order of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) for City Hall to speed up the process of using the vehicles for the public’s benefit.
“Leaving them to idle will affect the economy,” according to the NCPO order No 51/2559.
According to the order, repairing them so they can be put to use would help reduce the financial burden suffered in terms of warehouse fees.
The 176 vehicles are among a total of 315 purchased from the Austrian supplier, Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug AG.
This first batch of vehicles, imported in 2006, have been kept at a warehouse belonging to The payont Aeromotive Industries Co in Nonthaburi’s Bang Bua Thong district. The fire engines will be taken to the city’s fire stations in Sam Sen, Taling Chan, Lat Yao and Bang Khae.
Officials will then check their roadworthiness before a company is hired to repair them with a budget of 181 million baht. An initial check found 52 of them were in driving condition, but the rest must have their tyres replaced, according to the city’s Finance Department.
Another batch of fire engines, which were shipped to Thailand in 2007, has been stored at a separate warehouse owned by Namyong Terminal Plc in Laem Chabang deep-sea port in Chon Buri.
City Hall was embroiled in a legal dispute with the warehouse firm in the Administrative Court after it argued the accumulated rent of about 900 million baht was too high.
Pol Gen Assawin said the city wanted the rent cut to about 200 million baht.
It wanted the company to reduce the rent and apply that rate from December last year when the fire engine purchase scandal was settled in the Geneva-based Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.
The court ordered Steyr to pay €20.49 million (820 million baht) in damages to City Hall, which in return was required to accept all the fire engines, boats and equipment procured from the Austrian firm.
In 2013, two senior officials were sentenced to jail for alleged price collusion over the 6.6-billion purchase of 315 fire trucks, 30 fire boats and fire-fighting equipment.