Construction of flood barriers to stop if ordered by court

BANGKOK, March 5 (TNA) – Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said Monday she has ordered both the industry and transport ministries to review plans by the government to construct floodwalls around industrial estates after the Stop Global Warming Association has filed a petition to the Administrative Court to order for construction suspension. The Association has earlier filed the petition to the Court requesting it to order for the suspension of the construction of flood barriers around industrial estates, claiming that the plan lack environment study. Asking for sympathy from people living near industrial estates, Yingluck said what the government wants to implement urgently is to build flood barriers to prevent flood and also to build investor confidence. She said she had ordered governors of provinces where the floodwalls would be constructed to explain to the native people the necessity of building the flood walls. Plans for the construction would be reviewed if ordered by the court, Yingluck said. Touching on her four-day roadshow to Japan, starting Tuesday, the Thai prime minister said she would inform Japanese businessmen on water management plan on urgent and long-term as well as the government’s rehabilitation plan for industrial operators who were affected by massive flood late last year. A seminar will be organised to give an opportunity to Japanese businessmen to inquire what assistance the Thai government could extend to businessmen and to erase their doubts on the water management plan, she said. On the ongoing haze pollution problem in the North, she said she had ordered ministers to solve the problem. Yingluck said she had assigned Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Preecha Rengsomboonsuk and Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit to prepare plans to tackle the problem and discuss with her Monday. (TNA)