The Pattaya football stadium that became a billion-baht boondoggle will be completed by 2025 with yet another 400 million baht to be invested, Mayor Poramet Ngampichet announced.
This time, however, the National Anti-Corruption Commission will be overseeing the spending to ensure millions more in taxpayer money isn’t wasted.
Poramet and NACC Region 2 Assistant Secretary Supoj Sri ngam-muang, visited the Eastern National Sports Stadium site on Soi Chaiyapruek 2 April 26 with NACC Chonburi chief Kittipong Klibyam.
What they found was a partially completed football stadium and left abandoned for several years, exposed machinery and equipment broken and rusting due to neglect. The white elephant project begun by former mayor Ittiphol Kunplome in 2008 has become Pattaya’s biggest laughingstock.
Begun in 2008, the sports complex originally budgeted at 774 million baht was intended to house 12 different sport fields, swimming pool, tennis court, 12 main and minor sport stadiums and a 500-car parking lot.
The first phase of the 254-rai project, with 90 million baht spent on 5,000 of the planned 20,000 seats at the football stadium, was completed in September 2010. Grass was planted and construction of the final 15,000 seats was supposed to begin with a 536-million-baht budget later that year, with completion set for late 2012.
Nothing was done for six years. Finally the military was brought in to finish the third phase, which was complicated by underground rocks and stone.
In 2018, Chonburi Province obtained 398 million baht in funding for 2018-2020 and hired Rama 2-HT Joint Venture Co. to finish the job. Work restarted in 2019 on the west grandstand roof and east and south grandstands but was suspended in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting shortage in migrant workers.
The contractor, however, still collected 143.2 million baht for doing nothing. In retaliation, Pattaya seized the 50 million baht deposit and sued the contractor. The case is pending in court and Pattaya is still out more than 93 million baht.
That prompted the intervention of the NACC, which has been bombarded with complaints about Pattaya’s ineptitude in managing public funds with plenty of unproven allegations of graft and other corrupt dealings over the 15 years of construction contracts.
Poramet on Wednesday announced on his Facebook page that another 400 million baht would be spent on the project to finally complete it by 2025. The city originally had promised it would be done by July this year in order to host the Southeast Asian Games.
The games were moved to Hangzhou, China due to Thailand’s failure to prepare facilities on time.
So far, 328 million of that 400 million has been approved by the Pattaya City Council. The NACC will closely supervise and inspect the construction project, including preparing the terms of reference, inviting bids from new contractors, drafting of new construction contracts, budget allocation and other related matters. This is intended to ensure that the project proceeds without any further delay as planned.
