The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is set to investigate whether China Railway No. 10 (Thailand) engaged in bidding collusion to secure the 2.1-billion-baht contract to build the State Audit Office building, which collapsed due to the impact of last Friday’s earthquake in Myanmar, Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong said today.
The DSI, he added, may also investigate whether the company, a Thai subsidiary of China Railway Group, is wholly controlled by Chinese nationals, with the Thai partners being merely nominees.
Tawee pointed out that, normally, in a government call for tender, in which there is only one bidder, the bid price should be 10-15% below the median price specified by the agency which called for tenders. In the case of the SAO building project, though, the bid price, offered by a joint venture of Italian-Thai Development (ITD) and China Railway No 10 (Thailand) was only about one percent below the median price, he said.
The justice minister also said that it has been discovered that China Railway No 10 has not made any profits or paid any corporate taxes for the past several years, but has extended about two billion baht in loans to its board members.
This, he said, makes it quite obvious that the company is completely controlled by Chinese nationals.
He insists that the DSI is empowered to investigate the company, bidding collusion and foreign control of a registered Thai company.
Meanwhile, Industry Minister Akanat Promphan said today that the round and deformed steel bars obtained from the site of the collapsed building came from a factory which was closed down by the Industry Ministry in December last year, while the construction of the SAO building began in 2020.
He explained that, normally, if sub-standard steel bars are found, all the steel bars from the same factory would be recalled for checks and the factory would be told to suspend operations and make rectifications.
In this particular case, Akanat said the ministry may revoke its operating license.
Two sizes of steel bars, the 20mm and 32mm, were found to be sub-standard in the first tests of their chemical and mechanical properties, said the minister, adding that the second test will be conducted after a fact-finding team has collected more samples from the construction.
He claimed that seven steel factories have been closed down on his orders and three more are under investigation, adding that some of them are wholly capitalised and staffed by non-Thais.
