Pattaya is considering spending two million baht to repair two ambulance boats purchased for Koh Larn in 2009 that were never used.
Deputy Mayor Pattana Boonsawad and Pornpana Chokethai of the Koh Lan Medical Center on April 26 inspected the two single-engine boats that have been stored for more than a decade at the Koh Larn municipal office.
Purchased at the insistence of former mayor Itthiphol Kunplome for 3.9 million baht each, the boats both had faulty engines that years ago the city determined would cost too much to repair or replace. So the boats were left to rot. They had been intended to shuttle medical patients to the mainland.
Itthiphol in September 2009 pushed for the purchase of the two watercraft to replace a 36-foot, twin-engine ambulance boat that had reached the end of its life.
The 28-foot boats each had a 250-horsepower, two-stroke engine. Those engines will be replaced with more-efficient four-stroke engines and the boat interiors will be replaced. Pattana said the fiberglass hulls are still sound.
Engine replacement and repairs will cost about 1 million baht each, he estimated.
