Bangkok Post
April 9, 2002

Local people have renewed their calls for the government to scrap a waste-water treatment project in tambon Klong Dan and to look into alleged irregularities in the project.

Samut Prakan: The demands came yesterday during a protest rally by hundreds of protesters from Klong Dan in Samut Prakan’s Bang Bo district and from nearby tambon Klong Song in Chachoengsao’s Bang Pakong district.

Chalao Thimthong, a protest leader, said the project should be scrapped because it posed a grave threat to the local environment and livelihood.

Independent inspectors from the project’s creditor, Asian Development Bank, had also found evidence of irregularities in the project, he said.

The government must find and punish all involved in the irregularities, especially politicians, said Mr Chalao.

He said although the project was due for completion on Feb 20, it was only 80% complete now. As a result, the contractor had demanded another 746 days to finish the job, or 6.8 billion baht in damages for the construction delay.