From: kamol@ipied.tu.ac.TH (Kamol Hengkietisak)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Bangkok Post Jan 10: Tragedies and govt red tape
Date: 11 Jan 1993 16:52:57 +1100
Organization: Mail/News gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: munnari.oz.au

 
Is the failure of public safety measures due partly to innocent 
negligence? Or is it the impact of corruption? SUWANNA 
ASAVAROENGCHAI reports.
 
JUST a thought of it would have sent chills down your spine.
 
What if you were among the New Year revellers who were present 
during the peak of a joyous party on a floating restaurant, and 
suddenly the pontoon started to break loose and sends you into the 
strong ice-cold current of the Chao Phya River?
 
Or what if your child were in the school bus on that fateful 
morning last month when it crashed head-on with a strayed tour bus 
driven by an underage driver?
 
Or, if you were among those who were caught at the Phetchaburi 
Road when a gas tanker overturned and exploded some two years ago?
 
And how about those students who drowned in a capsized boat in 
Ubolratana Dam just a few days before the Phetchaburi Road 
catastrophe. The boat was illegally modified.
 
There have been, in recent memories, too many public disasters, 
too many accidents which have sent shock waves, one after another. 
When catastrophe become almost daily news, one begins to wonder: 
Are there official measures to provide public safety? Why such 
man-made disasters have occurred repeatedly? Can't we avoid them? 
And who should take the responsibility?
 
On the surface, most accidents could be blamed on recklessness, a 
pure chance, or even the effect of amphetamine -- as popular known 
as "Ya Mah" (horse drug). Most, if not all, of the major mishaps 
shared a common cause: somebody fails to abide by laws and 
regulations. Of course, those who cause the accident at the scene 
are the ones. But how about the authorities who have failed to 
implement the legal and safety regulations.
 
Is the failure of public safety measures due partly to innocent 
negligence? Or is it the impact of corruption?
 
If the latter is the hidden root cause, those who believe that 
corruption would not have any adverse effect on their lives unless 
they have to directly deal with the bureaucracy, may have to 
change their mind.
 
There have been observations that last month's tragedy in front of 
the Mae Nam Hotel which claimed 11 lives, could have been 
prevented had the Harbour Department prohibited the hotel's 
management from holding the party for 400 persons on the pontoon, 
which had a loading capacity of 200-300 persons.
 
It was reported that the pontoon was registered in 1984 as a 
moorage. However, the hotel had set up chairs and tables and had 
it served as a floating restaurant. Before the tragedy, the hotel 
had in past years organized successive parties for as many people 
as those on the fateful night on different occasions ranging from 
Loy Krathong party to New Year's celebration.
 
It is almost inconceivable that the Harbour Department officials 
have allowed such hazardous activities to take place right before 
their very eyes for so long. That the celebration would one day 
turn out to be a tragedy on the pontoon under their jurisdiction 
should be of concern to the officials. Harbour Department 
director-general Sathien Wongwichien said that the department was 
not aware that the pontoon had been modified after its 
registration in 1984.
 
Is it mere negligence? If so, by who? The hotel or the 
authorities. Or both.
 
In fact, the director-general said, the Harbour Department does 
not have the authority to look into a restaurant operation. It has 
no power to judge the structure of floating vessels, whether they 
block the waterway or dump garbage and polluted water into the 
river. That comes under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's 
jurisdiction.
 
Mr Sathien added that it is still unclear whether the hotel had 
broken any laws by setting up dinner tables on the pontoon. There 
are no regulations to forbid pontoons from being used as floating 
restaurants. And since the hotel did not change the original 
structure of the pontoon, it did not actually break the Harbour 
Department's regulations.
 
"So far, what we can say is that the pontoon was used for a reason 
other than that which it was registered for with the department," 
he said.
 
By law, the department has the authority to control any structure 
or vessel in the waterways, including the registration of such. 
Unlike transport vessels, pontoons, which are normally moored, do 
not require an annual safety inspection.
 
In many cases of controversial catastrophes, there have been 
allegations of irregularities and bribe-taking by officials. The 
Mae Nam's pontoon case is no exception.
 
There has been an unsubstantiated allegation that some Harbour 
officials had taken "under the table" payment to provide 
"conveniences" for the hotel after it registered its pontoon.
 
The director general flatly denied the allegation, however. "There 
is no corruption here as far as I know," he sternly insisted. "I 
don't believe that our officials were deliberately negligent 
because of money."
 
A few days after the incident, Deputy Communications Minister 
Sawai Pattano said in an interview that the Harbour Department had 
to take certain responsibility for the accident. He said that 
disciplinary action might be taken against the concerned 
officials. He has set up a committee to look into the incident.
 
In response, Mr Sathien said the minister's comment did not 
construe that his department was implicated in the alleged 
irregularities which resulted in the accident. He acknowledged 
that the department might have to share responsibility on the 
matter as the pontoon was in its jurisdiction. He added that the 
depar  tment has also set up a committee to investigate the 
tragedy.
 
"Our staff are hard-working people, who are always on alert for 
public safety," he said. "It is the public who did not heed our 
warnings. Only after a major tragedy that they began to be 
cautious."
 
He contended that several other elements are causes of water 
accidents, which occur mostly at night, and thus casualties are 
usually high.
 
Whether the hotel has to take all the blame alone or whether the 
authorities should also be blamed has yet to be determined.
 
Indeed, while there are an abundance of laws and regulations, the 
standard of public safety in Bangkok is yet up to a satisfactory 
level, according to Prof Dr Vichit Punyahotra of the National 
Safety Council of Thailand.
 
"We have to keep on updating the regulations to impose public 
safety measures," he said.
 
Lack of manpower and equipment has always been singled out by 
authorities as a reason for their failure to enforce the laws 
whenever accidents involving public safety occur. Nevertheless, 
there is apparently some negligence involved.
 
Office negligence to enforce safety regulations, Dr Vichit pointed 
out, could be one of the causes for catastrophe. Yet, if 
negligence is instigated by corruption, then the authorities 
involved should be severely punished.
 
Petty corruption "isn't worth it when it results in an accident 
because the price is too high to pay," he said.
 
When a building collapsed and killed three construction workers 
and injured 15 more in 1988 in Phya Thai District, two BMA 
officials were investigated to  for possible negligence in issuing 
construction permit. The 21-year-old driver, who drove the tour 
bus which rammed into a school bus and killed six young students 
and the school bus driver last December, admitted that he obtained 
his public bus driving license, which normally is issued to 
persons above 25 years of age, at a price of 500 baht.
 
A man in his 30s, who asked for anonymity, charged that an 
instructor at the driving school he attended told him that he 
could have a driving license without taking a driving test if he 
was willing to fork out 800 baht.
 
It is no wonder then that many unqualified or underage drivers 
could have bought their licenses and have been rampaging on the 
streets everyday on motorcycles, in cars, buses and trucks. It is 
thus not incidental that these drivers have increased the risk of 
street accidents by several fold.
 
Out of the mushrooming buildings along Bangkok's horizon a number 
of them are illegally modified, some with cooperation from BMA 
official.
 
In Bang Rak District alone, where the financial street of Silom is 
located, Deputy Bangkok Governor Chaiwat Sinsuwong found that at 
least four of 30 new building projects have been illegally 
modified. One added seven more floors to its originally-planned 
four-storey building. Another added five more floors to its 
four-storey building.
 
On the waterfront, the situation is no less precarious. By an 
official record three years ago, 20,000 Bangkokians commuted by 
boats daily. That number has increased by two to three fold this 
year. The boats they travel in provide minimal life-saving gears, 
if there is any.
 
Like illegally-modified buildings, these vessels, many of which 
are also illegally modified, are accident-prone. The accident in 
Ubolratana Dam some two years ago, stemming largely from illegal 
modification to the tour boat, claimed the lives of 21 college 
students.
 
In many of the catastrophes, irregularities among government 
officials, who allowed illegal activities involving public safety 
to ensue, had been implicated. 
 
Corruption, which has eroded the society to its foundations, is in 
large part, responsible for the absence of public safety measures. 
Nonetheless, not many people, especially government officials, see 
it as such.
 
"In Thai society," said Dr Sangsit Piriyarangsan, "corruption is 
observed among government officials in a traditional manner -- 
like the way a social etiquette is observed -- rather than 
anything else."
 
Dr Sangsit is a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of 
Chulalongkorn University. In his research on attitude toward 
corruption by police, government officials and businessmen, he has 
found that government officials look at corruption in a different 
perspective from, say, journalists.
 
The inherited concept of the old society has allowed government 
officials to provide favours to selected few and their cronies, Dr 
Sangsit said. Receiving money in return for such favouritism is 
considered ethically right.
 
Of course, the practitioners of favouritism include those who do 
not want to observe public safety rules.
 
"Government officials sincerely feel that they do not commit 
corruption when they provide favour to the public and are given 
money in return," he said.
 
Dr Sangsit's research involved extensive interviews with 
policemen, government officials and businessmen across the 
country.
 
At the BMA, allegations of corruption sometimes cost corrupt 
officials their jobs when the charge could be supported by 
material evidences and eyewitnesses. But more often than not, 
complainants of official corruption decline to testify. Mr Chaiwat 
admitted that there are some black sheep among good staffers in 
the BMA.
 
Since he took office last year, he has received many complaints 
from the public about corruption among the BMA staffers, 
especially those involved building construction.
 
Many of them are cases of buildings which do not conform with the 
blueprints. The four buildings in Bang Rak district cited above 
have been ordered to tear down the illegally added floors or the 
owners face punishment. Four BMA officials in the district have 
been disciplined.
 
Yet, while Bangkok is racing up skyward, many building project 
operators are willing to pay "extra expenses" to see their 
buildings taller and more spacious than originally planned.
 
Such a desire often leads to extortion from corrupt officials. One 
project owner came to Mr Chaiwat complaining about being 
double-crossed by a BMA official. The complainant said he went to 
the official and showed him a blueprint of his project which 
apparently did not conform to existing regulations. The official 
gestured him to go ahead. After the construction was completed, 
that official came back and informed him of his illegality act. 
The official then demanded from him a large sum of money.
 
Dr Sangsit explained, however, that businessmen who give bribes 
consider the money, which normally amounts to five per cent of the 
expected benefit from it, as an expense, not corruption. But if 
officials demand an unusually high rate, it is considered 
unethical. "That is corruption in the businessmen's view," said Dr 
Sangsit.
 
Deputy Bangkok Governor Chaiwat shares similar opinion. He said 
that most businessmen who lodged their complaints said that they 
were asked for what they considered over the acceptable rate.
 
"What we desperately need are witnesses, whether individuals or 
material evidence, which can testify to the wrong-doing of the 
corrupt officials," he said.
 
In most cases, those who filed the complaints refused to stand as 
witnesses. In the long and tedious procedure of investigation, it 
requires solid evidence and witnesses to bring about punishment on 
corrupt officials.
 
To avert social impact from corruption, corrupt officials should 
be removed, Mr Chaiwat said, "otherwise, they will continue moving 
up the promotional ladder and will one day occupy influential 
government offices.
 
"As an administrator I, in my political position, can't do more 
than moving corrupt officials around. But they will end up in the 
same place anyway. What else could I do."
 
Mr Chaiwat recalled that one businessman who vowed to testify as a 
witness changed his mind after the corrupt official apparently 
made a deal with him to to return his money. If businessmen are 
the true culprit of the society, then the public has to  shoulder 
some responsibility for it is they who fester the system.
 
"There are those who enjoy having privileges that others don't 
have," the deputy Bangkok governor commented. "If you want to put 
an end to corruption, you have to stop giving bribes, big or 
small."
 
In Chaiwat's opinion, the society as a whole has to join forces in 
terminating the malpractice.
 
Yet, in Dr Sangsit's opinion, businessmen would be the hardest lot 
to change their habits.
 
"Corruption is like a vicious cycle. Sometimes, businessmen have 
to succumb to the system for the survival of their business," he 
said.
 
"Besides, all businessmen are alike. If there is any chance to 
circumvent the laws and regulations for the convenience of their 
operations, they would not be reluctant to do it."
 
To halt corruption, Dr Sangsit suggested that it has to begin with 
government officials.
 
"We have to change their inherited attitude of a businessman in 
government uniform," he advised.
 
"Let persuade them to change their perception to realise that they 
are now in a modern government system where the public interest is 
of paramount."