PHUKET'S design for a 2.6 billion Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibition Centre could be decided by Thailand's Cabinet when it meets this Tuesday.

With the decision coming down to the wire, Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij headed a Bangkok delegation that explained the options to about 600 Phuket people at the Metropole Hotel in Phuket City today.

Just how much local involvement there has been in the process was not clear.

While former Phuket politician Anchalee Vanich is secretary-general to the Prime Minister and was with Khun Korn today, Phuket administration leaders have had cause to complain lately about the lack of local involvement in assessing important infrastructure.

Some of the advocates for the various MICE options did not know the right name for some of Phuket's national parks and beaches, a worrying sign with a Cabinet decision just a couple of days away.

The ''big government'' of Bangkok decision-making was supposed to have vanished with Thaksin Shinawatra and his successsors. Today it was plain that perhaps some elements within the ruling Democrat Party have yet to understand that they are supposed to be different.

Or perhaps, with a vital national election coming within months, there's an added urgency to deliver as many goodies to as many electorates as possible.

What Phuket needs is a MICE centre that meets the needs of visitors and locals, a concept that hopefully the Cabinet will keep in mind on Tuesday.

Somboon Chirayus, president of the Phuket Tourist Association, spoke up today about the concept of having accommodation at the MICE centre when Phuket already has 60,000 legal and illegal rooms available.

The concept of having government accommodation competing with private accommodation was not ideal, he said.

The hope is that the Phuket MICE decision is not being pushed through quickly for political purposes.

Khun Korn, talking about transport infrastructure for Phuket in a general kind of way and making the point that something good was on the way, did nothing to ease the sense that, having been delayed unnecessarily for years, vital decisions now might be being rushed.