Two years after Pattaya’s former mayor vowed to revive his brother’s failed Koh Larn renewable-energy project, nothing has been done, and likely won’t be.
Pattaya City Council members on Nov. 13 visited the site of the infamous “Ray Building” on Samae Beach, a stingray-shaped municipal building that was the final phase of a 170-million-baht wind- and solar-power boondoggle built by former mayor Itthiphol Kunplome.
Only the contractor hired by the Pattaya administration benefited from the project, which was allocated a maintenance budget of zero baht.
The project was supposed to produce electricity for Pattaya city offices and streetlights on Koh Larn using 45 wind turbines. The Ray Building, completed in 2011, was an alternative-energy resource center – complete with solar panels – restaurant and souvenir stand.
But, like so many projects launched by Pattaya city, no money was allocated for maintenance and the Ray Building and the alternative-energy experiment shut down in just a couple years.
In 2018, military-appointed mayor Anan Charoenchasri ordered repairs of the Ray Building, but after his inspection in January of that year, nothing was ever mentioned about it again, other than to evict beach vendors who had taken over the property.
In October 2020, Itthiphol’s brother and then-mayor Sonthaya, toured the failed facility and vowed to find funds to revive it. He never did. Now the city is being sued by the central government with the case tied up in Administrative Court.
The Pattaya council members who visited the white elephant site this week only wrung their hands and lamented the wasted money. But they offered nothing in the way or fixing up the project or finally tearing it down and sparing the former and currents mayors the embarrassment.
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