4 bid for water scheme
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Two groups quit Bt350-bn mega- project; winners to be announced on June 4
Bidding for the government’s ambitious Bt350-billion water-management and flood-prevention mega-project officially kicked off yesterday with four groups of contractors handing in their final plans.
The selection committee will on June 4 announce the winning bidders for the nine project modules.
The four main contenders are Korea Water Resources Cooperation, ITD-Power China Joint Venture, Summit SUT and Loxley, who handed in their plans to the government’s Water and Flood Management Committee (WFMC) yesterday. Two other qualified bidders – Team Thailand Joint Venture and Thailand-Japan JV – have decided to pull out.
According to Team Thailand, it has done its best to draw up a final plan, but found that it could not implement the projects under the budget set by the government.
Team Thailand is in fact qualified to bid for these projects under Module A3 and Module A6/B4 to construct a water-retention area and water and weather information centre, which are worth a total of Bt14 billion.
A representative from Summit SUT, who wished to remain anonymous, also voiced concern about the budgets set by the government.
“If the cost of the project is less than what can be considered reasonable, we could decide to pull out even if we win the bid,” he said, speculating on the possibility that the government might want to push the price down further.
Summit SUT is bidding for Module B2, which focuses on city planning and land use in 17 basins nationwide worth about Bt14 billion.
Meanwhile, ITD-Power China Joint Venture has asked the government to set up a one-stop service to help contractors, when it comes to negotiating with local people.
Sumate Surabotsopon, executive vice president of Italian-Thai Development Public Co Ltd, which is representing ITD-Power China JV, said the contractors would face many risks.
“Hence, the government should help us by facilitating the projects, especially when it comes to paperwork related to gaining approval for the Environmental Impact Assessment report,” he said, after handing in 18 boxes carrying more than 4,000 pages of documents to the WFMC.
Byung Hoon Yune, vice president of the Korea Water Resources Cooperation, said he was confident that his team would be able to complete the entire project within five years if his company won the bid.
However, he did voice concern about the lack of participation of local people, which he said was important for the project.
WFMC secretary-general Suphot Tovichakchaikul said his committee would spend about a month studying the final plans, before announcing the winners on June 4 and signing contracts with them 30 days later.
On May 27, the WFMC will announce the names of contenders who win at the technical level, before negotiating costs with them and announcing the final names on June 4.
