Thai PM moves to strip scandal-hit firm of contracts after second deadly crane accident
Amid public anger, PM Anutin issued an order to end two contracts and blacklist Italian-Thai Development after two crane disasters killed 34 people
Thailand’s prime minister moved on Thursday to strip contracts from a major construction firm following a crane collapse that killed two people on a highway near Bangkok. The disaster occurred just a day after another crane toppled from an elevated rail line being built by the same company and claimed 32 lives.
Facing pressure to respond to public anger over the repeated fatal incidents linked to Italian-Thai Development, a firm awarded state mega-projects across the country, caretaker Prime Minister Anutin Charnivarkul announced on Thursday that he would cancel the two contracts in question.
“Since this matter has deeply shocked the public and poses serious risks to people’s lives … in the case of these two projects an order has been given to the Ministry of Transport to terminate the contracts with the contractor and take legal action to the fullest extent of the law, including placing them on a blacklist,” he told reporters.
The specific contracts in question – for the Rama II elevated highway and a delayed China-backed high-speed train line – are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The back-to-back tragedies have revived scrutiny over slumping standards in the Thai construction industry, with insiders pointing to a “doom loop” of bid rigging and bribery which ultimately erodes oversight of safety, as costs are passed on to subcontractors, who in turn cut corners with materials, staffing and inspections.
Thursday’s collapse occurred in Samut Sakhon province, just outside Bangkok, crushing cars on a stretch of road already notorious for falling masonry and crane accidents resulting from work on an elevated highway that has dragged on for years.