A different view of ourselves

Here are five weird and bizarre news stories from the last week. 

News: The Airport Rail Link (ARL) operator announced it does not have enough money to pay its staff, as it has run out of cash flow. Sky Electric Train Co still has no clue how to find the cash to pay staff salaries for the month of June. Earlier news was that the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) said it would incorporate the entity into its own operation to help solve the liquidity problem. The state enterprise is now waiting for approval from its board to embrace the problematic ARL.

Questions: What will happen next if the SRT can’t rescue the ARL? Will trains be able to operate for the public? Who should take responsibility for the cash-strapped project? And if the ARL becomes a unit under under the SRT’s umbrella, how is it going to benefit SRT, considering the SRT’s financial status as the country’s worst-performing state enterprise?

News: Six luxury cars are looking for owners. But the owners may not want them. They were being transported, but four of six, including a Lamborghini, a Bentley, a BMW and a Mercedes-Benz caught fire and burned out in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Pak Chong district. Problem is, no one has come out to claim ownership of the cars. Police have no clues, and now the investigation involves supercar gurus, forensic experts and the Revenue Department. As usual, local police said the probe would take time, as they need more evidence that requires analysis in a laboratory.

Questions: How can six cars – altogether worth around Bt100 million – be transported without owners being known? How could they even be imported to Thailand in the first place?

News: The Education Ministry has made very expensive typos in its procurement document for school vans. The ministry’s budget report for 1,000 12-seat diesel vans for schools sets a median price for bidding at Bt1.2 million per van, exceeding the market price of Bt956,000. In addition, it has put down Bt2.34 billion for the budget for 1,000 vans, which makes its most “desirable” school vans priced at Bt2.34 million each. Deputy Education Minister Sermsak Pongpanich told the House during the budget debate that it was all down to typing errors. He clarified that the actual fund the ministry wants is Bt1.23 billion.

Questions: How much would the typo have cost the taxpayer had the opposition failed to spot the costly error? Does such a ministry typo equal an “honest mistake”?

News: Earlier (before the typos made by the Education Ministry), the Commerce Ministry announced that Thailand’s export growth for April was only 2.89 per cent year-on-year instead of its earlier report at 10.52 per cent. The ministry blamed the mistake in its report on inflated data supplied by the Customs Department, which wrongly reported the value of the Hong Kong export figure at US$2.177 billion instead of the correct figure of $887 million.

Question: If this is not the biggest case for educational reform, especially in maths, what is? 

News: One positive report managed to squeeze in this week: Bangkok is the top city for travel. The Thai capital edges out great cities like London, Paris, Singapore and New York in the MasterCard annual global survey. Despite our notorious traffic and poorly functioning airport and Airport Rail Link, the city will see a total of 15.98 million tourist arrivals in 2013, pipping London at 15.96 million. 

Question: Anyone who has a residence in London or Paris and wants to swap with me? 

I have no more to say except that I totally agree with the deputy governor of TAT that “Amazing Thailand Always Amazes You”. Just look at the five news stories I picked this week.

Welcome on board everyone!