The Pattaya City Council has dropped plans to spend 21.7 million baht on additional closed-circuit television cameras, saying the police should pick up the tab.
Mayor Anan Charoenchasri said at an Aug. 18 council meeting that the purchase of 7.1 million baht in cameras for Naklua 22-24 and 14.6 million around Bali Hai Pier will be canceled due to concerns raised by the Office of the Auditor General.
Since new Pattaya administrators were appointed in 2015, the central government has clamped down on city spending, calling many of the projects initiated by the former mayor and council wasteful and ruling that Pattaya can now only spend cash on projects it alone has authority over.
Councilman Saksit Yaemsri said the OAG could consider the CCTV purchases a misappropriation of public funds as safety falls under the jurisdiction of the Royal Thai Police.
Councilman Thanet Supornsahatrangsi also questioned the cost of the CCTV contracts Pattaya has cut in recent years, noting that in some cases it has paid 55,000 baht for a single camera while other times buying them for just 10,000 baht.
Pattaya currently has more than 2,000 CCTV cameras, although both police and city officials previously have acknowledged that hundreds of them are broken.
