It is rather ironic that the committee
recommended the project be given
the go-ahead with the excuse that
''this should be the last project of
its
kind to be approved despite the lack
of transparency and proper
environmental survey''.
For while this sad episode should
serve as a valuable and expensive
lesson to everybody, it may well have
to be repeated again since the PTT
has suffered virtually no punishment
for its transgressions. In effect, all
it
received was a slap on the wrist.
Indeed, environmentalists and human
rights activists are justified to be
unhappy with this ''compromise''
outcome. With each new
mega-project -- whether it is the Pak
Mool Dam, the Genco hazardous
waste treatment facility, the
Khong-Chi-Mool project's Rasi Salai
Dam, or countless other
state-sponsored fiascos -- there have
been promises to improve the
decision-making process. Yet there
are still no proper and impartial public
hearings held prior to approval, and
the National Environment Board
continues to pass faulty and
incomplete environmental impact
studies.
It is probably unfair to call the
committee's report a whitewash; the
committee simply contained too many
good people who would not have
stood for that. But it is a pity they
lacked the courage of their
convictions and failed to come up
with some kind of sterner action to
teach the PTT, and other state
development agencies, a lesson once
and for all. Once again, it looks as
if
the rich and powerful in Thailand will
get away with trampling on the
common person's rights.
As for the state-owned Petroleum
Authority of Thailand (PTT), the
project's sponsor, it has little it
can
say in its own defence against the
committee's criticisms. Piti
Yimprasert, PTT's gas division
president, is apparently unable to
grasp the definition of ''public
interest''. The agency, he said, had
done everything possible, especially
in providing sufficient information
to
villagers in the area.
The PTT's own EIA shows how
ludicrous this argument is: a poll their
consultants carried out showed that
only two of 136 local people sampled
understood what the project is; 110
said they had no knowledge about it
at all.
But it is precisely this issue of ''public
interest'' which is at stake and is
the
root cause of the dispute, not only
with this gas pipeline project, but
also
other controversial infrastructure
projects throughout the country.
The PTT and other such agencies do
not seem to understand that public
interest is not local interest. The
PTT
might think that the public interest
is
being served with gas from Burma to
generate electricity, and community
interest is served by getting support
from the local village headmen after
offering incentives and assistance.
But public interest is far more subtle
than that. The PTT is a state-owned
agency and therefore ''owned'' by
every single Thai. It is a national
asset. So, too, is the watershed
forest which is home to endangered
wildlife and through which the
pipeline is being built. Impartiality
is
therefore required to decide which
asset must be sacrificed for the other,
and by how much.
The lesson here is that the project
sponsors -- be it the PTT or any
other state agency -- should not be
in
charge of organising public hearings
or paying for the environmental
impact studies. Instead, another
impartial body or mechanism should
be set up to carry out these two vital
tasks with transparency and
accountability. Only then can a social
consensus be achieved.
The new Constitution has laid the
groundwork for such impartiality. It
now requires effective
implementation. That is up to Premier
Chuan Leekpai, who must capitalise
on the gas pipeline issue and follow
the committee's recommendations to
change the laws governing how
so-called ''public interest''
development projects are approved.
Otherwise, the lessons of the gas
pipeline -- like those of so many other
projects -- will not be learnt, and
Thailand will make no progress
toward becoming a society that can
live in harmony with the environment.