Sad state of city buses holds back economy
Please make room for other passengers,” a middle-aged female bus conductor shouted across the cramped cabin of an air-conditioned Bangkok bus during the Monday morning rush hour.
She asked commuters to squeeze in a little bit more to give others room to stand. Everyone was in a hurry, trying their best to arrive on time at work. As the roads were packed with cars, the heavy traffic slowed their journey.
This bus trip fatigue is a regular routine for millions of Bangkok residents. Whether security guards, cleaners, office workers or government officials, they have to tolerate cramped buses in slow lanes, if they do not live along elevated train routes or cannot afford the train fares, never mind afford to travel by taxi or car.
Why should we have to suffer such unpleasant, tiring bus journey routines? These are the workforce who help keep our economy thriving. Even though they are seen as “small engines” of the economy, their combined contribution to economic growth is significant.
The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), which is supposed to make their lives easier and their bus trips more tolerable, has disappointed them in its failed mission to purchase 3,183 naturalgas vehicle (NGV) buses to replace its ageing fleet. A decade since it was initiated, the project has still to materialise, much to the BMA’s shame.
The combined damages caused by this 10-year delay could be higher than the project’s estimated value of 13.1 billion baht. These damages include the cost of diesel fuel, required to run the BMA’s current fleet of buses aged over 17 years old, which is higher than the price of natural gas.
Actually, this should not be a complex project to handle. If Thailand cannot take on the simple task of buying a new fleet of buses to help get its people to work, I think we have no reason to aim high to transform the country into the so-called “Thailand 4.0” era.
The NGV bus purchase plan would benefit both commuters and the BMTA itself. Without NGV buses running on the roads, commuters are suffering from a shortage of buses because at least 300 ageing buses are taken off the streets for maintenance every day.
Meanwhile, the bus procurement plan can help the BMTA’s finances. It is the biggest loss-ridden state enterprise with 100 billion baht of debt. With the cheaper cost of natural gas, the NGV buses could help the BMTA save about 1.7 billion baht on costly diesel fuel and maintenance, which would eventually halve its loss.
The project is the brainchild of the Thaksin Shinawatra government which approved a 23.5-billion-baht budget for the purchase of 2,000 buses in 2006. Unfortunately, it stalled due to the military coup the same year.
It was later revived by the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration in 2009 which initially tweaked it into a plan to hire 4,000 NGV buses, later amended to 1,757 buses. But the government did not live long, and nor did the plan.
The successor government run by Yingluck Shinawatra revisited the plan and in 2012 approved a 13.1-billion-baht loan for the BMTA to procure 3,183 buses. But the project hit a snag, with another military coup in May 2014.
Under the current military government, there were promising signs initially for the project. Amid allegations of manipulation of the bus specifications, the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration terminated the first round of bidding involving 489 NGV buses, won by Cho Thavee Dollasien Co and its JCVV Co.
The government later opened a new round of bidding in which Bestlin Group won the tender with its 3.38-billion-baht offer, with the median price set at 4.2 billion baht.
The fate of the deal is still uncertain. First, the Customers Department detected false tax declarations by Super Zara Co, which handled imports of 489 buses for Bestlin. The importer was accused of manipulating procedures by falsely specifying in its import documents that the buses were manufactured in Malaysia and made of Malaysian raw materials, to reap a tax-exemption benefit based on an Asean free-trade agreement.
The department found all 489 buses were ready-made in China, so the imports were not entitled to a tax exemption, but in fact liable to 40% taxation.
Moreover, the imports were deemed a breach of the contract between Bestlin and the BMTA, which required that the buses be manufactured in Malaysia.
The department has since released 399 buses after Super Zara Co paid the tax import amount. But the deal is still not concluded.
Following a recent ruling by the Central Administrative Court ordering the BMTA to take the imported buses from Bestlin, the state enterprise is vowing to fight the matter on appeal.
But city commuters, most of whom are low- to middle-income earners, should not be forced to pay for the BMTA’s failure and its lack of transparency. They should not have to suffer on roads, squeezing into ageing, cramped buses any longer.
Any failure to finish the procurement plan in an efficient and transparent manner within the tenure of this government will stand as a national embarrassment.
The government and the BMTA must flex their muscles and put new buses on the roads for the sake of improving the quality of life of the millions of people in this city.
City commuters, most of whom are low- to middle-income earners, should not be forced to pay for the BMTA’s failure.