After a decade-long legal dispute over fire trucks purchased from Austrian fire truck supplier Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug, 176 trucks that have been sitting in storage awaiting the outcome of a corruption case will finally see the light of day and get the repairs and maintenance required before setting them to work putting out fires.
All of the trucks will be repaired by the Mechanical Engineering Division of the Bangkok Metropolitan Association (BMA), and 35 should be ready for use before the end of this month, according to Deputy Bangkok Governor Pol. Gen. Aswin Kwanmuang.
“The cost of repair and maintenance for each of these trucks would be between THB200,000 and THB300,000,” he said of the trucks that have been in storage for 10 years and fallen into disrepair without ever being used.
After they have been repaired, Aswin believes that they should be in usable condition for at least five years.
The trucks, which were ordered in 2006, were never put on the street due to a THB6.6 billion corruption scandal involving ex-former deputy interior minister Pracha Maleenont.
Long story short, he is now on the run.
The reason the BMA is able to bring the trucks out of the warehouse now is thanks to an arbitrator based in Switzerland who ordered the Austrian fire truck company to pay THB800 million to the BMA, and suggested that the city use the vehicles.
“We have checked the vehicles and found that we should be able to fix 71 trucks. But in the cases of 105 other fire vehicles, the BMA’s Mechanical Engineering Division cannot handle the repairs.”
An expert will be required to repair the other 105 fire trucks, to which they plan on choosing a contractor in December. There will be a budget of THB153 million and it will hopefully be done by March 2017.
The BMA will be meeting with representation from the Namyong Terminal Public Company Limited as well. They will discuss the fees that have been racked up by the trucks held in their facilities for the last decade.
The firm is demanding that the BMA pay the THB427 million parking fees they owe, but Aswin said that the BMA is able to pay THB200 million at the most.
The Nation reported that the Bangkok Fire and Rescue Department currently has about 500 fire trucks in their possession, but according to deputy chief Somkiat Nontakaew, most of them have been in service for well over 20 years. Such vehicles life expectancy is between 15 to 20 years.
