The usual propaganda about taxpayer-funded royal projects is that they are all wonderfully successful. That’s buffalo manure, but there are almost never media reports about gigantic and expensive failures. The Nation, however, breaks the propaganda mold.
This report is somewhat odd in that it is about The Dictator making a trip to Kalasin to promote “his” so-called Kalasin Model “to fight rampant poverty in the province.” It is the usual royal boosterism.
In the morning, Prayut will hand over an agricultural machine and livestock from the Royal Cattle and Buffalo Bank for Farmers to farmers at Ban Pone Village in Kammuang district. He is then scheduled to travel to Lampayang Royal Reservoir in Khaowong district, followed by a meeting with local leaders at Khaowong Technical College.
Meanwhile, ageing and self-appointed NGO leader Bamrung Kayotha, a member of the junta’s sub-committee on national reform on natural resources and environment, said “he wished that Prayut had chosen to visit the Lampayang Bhumipat water diversion tunnel in Khaowong district.”
That tunnel is a “Royal Initiated Project of the late King Rama IX, he said, featuring a 740-metre underground tunnel able to provide water to over 12,000 rai (1,920 hectares) of land.” How’s that gone?
The project, costing a king’s ransom, “has been abandoned and the transportation route to the project was damaged for a long time without repair…”.
Not so says the chief irrigation official of Kalasin Irrigation, who claims the “tunnel project has been functional and could distribute water to farmers in two tambons covering about 12,000 rai (1,920 hectares) of land…”. Further, the “tunnel project has no problems…”.
Something’s wrong and one of these guys is fibbing. But when it comes to royal projects, the official line will be that the project is just great.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 