PHUKET: A Phuket Vice Governor has acted quickly to prevent Phuket's 325 million baht one-stop yacht service centre becoming a ''white elephant.''
The centre, completed in January, has been standing idle since because of indecision about who manages and runs the service, a meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall in Phuket City heard on Thursday.
Several of the key people were absent - notably the Chief of Phuket's Marine Office 5, Phuripat Theerakulpisut, who went to a minimum wages meeting instead, and Phuket Provincial Administrative organisation President, Paiboon Upatising, who oversaw the creation of an articifical coral reef off Karon.
When Vice Governor Jamleran Tipayapongtada asked the meeting: ''What's the object of this project?'' he did not get a single response.
Vice Governor Jamleran was having none of it. By the afternoon, he had demanded and got a meeting with Khun Paiboon, Khun Phuripat and others to sort out the mess.
''We can't have this,'' he told the impromptu gathering. ''Phuket's money is being wasted and nothing is being done.''
Khun Phuripat said construction of the centre at the Phuket east coast port of Chalong was at an end and the building had a guarantee on workmanship.
But he said ''global warming'' had contributed to a situation where heavy waves were capable of damaging the centre, at the end of a long pier, and yachts moored around it.
''We have a 90 million baht budget to create protection for the centre and the yachts,'' he said. ''It should be complete by 2014,'' he added.
Khun Paiboon said that the administrative organisation welcomed the opportunity to oversee operations and would like to set up a system based on one staff member from Marine 5, one from Customs and one from Immigration.
''It could be in operation in four or five months,'' he said. ''We really need this because there are more than 1000 yachts registering on arrival on Phuket each year.
''We believe that number could quickly grow to 4000 or 5000 with a proper one-stop registration service.''
The centre, completed in January, has been standing idle since because of indecision about who manages and runs the service, a meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall in Phuket City heard on Thursday.
Several of the key people were absent - notably the Chief of Phuket's Marine Office 5, Phuripat Theerakulpisut, who went to a minimum wages meeting instead, and Phuket Provincial Administrative organisation President, Paiboon Upatising, who oversaw the creation of an articifical coral reef off Karon.
When Vice Governor Jamleran Tipayapongtada asked the meeting: ''What's the object of this project?'' he did not get a single response.
Vice Governor Jamleran was having none of it. By the afternoon, he had demanded and got a meeting with Khun Paiboon, Khun Phuripat and others to sort out the mess.
''We can't have this,'' he told the impromptu gathering. ''Phuket's money is being wasted and nothing is being done.''
Khun Phuripat said construction of the centre at the Phuket east coast port of Chalong was at an end and the building had a guarantee on workmanship.
But he said ''global warming'' had contributed to a situation where heavy waves were capable of damaging the centre, at the end of a long pier, and yachts moored around it.
''We have a 90 million baht budget to create protection for the centre and the yachts,'' he said. ''It should be complete by 2014,'' he added.
Khun Paiboon said that the administrative organisation welcomed the opportunity to oversee operations and would like to set up a system based on one staff member from Marine 5, one from Customs and one from Immigration.
''It could be in operation in four or five months,'' he said. ''We really need this because there are more than 1000 yachts registering on arrival on Phuket each year.
''We believe that number could quickly grow to 4000 or 5000 with a proper one-stop registration service.''
Reminds me somehow of the Bus Terminal 2 :-(
Posted by Fritz Pinguin on December 23, 2012 10:57