Finishing Phuket’s Provincial Hall off to a good start, says Vice Governor

Provincial officials met with representatives of the new contractor – named only as “the Wall and Tesco joint venture” (literal translation from the Thai กิจการค้าร่วม วอล แอนด์ เทสโก) – at the currently used century-old Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday (Feb 17). Vice Governor Jakthee explained.

“Already the project is 1.9% ahead of schedule,” he said.

V/Gov Vikrom explained that the meeting yesterday was the second meeting between the contractor and officials to confirm the progress made in completing the construction contract, which he now revealed stood at B196 million – down from B198mn as reported by Phakaphong Tavipatana, Phuket Governor at the time, on Sept 6, 2019.

At that time, with Governor Phakaphong in Sept 2019 requesting an extra B38mn to complete works unfinished by the initial contractor Chun Eaw Co Ltd, the total cost of the project had blown out to B647mn.

The original contract for building the new Provincial Hall, signed on Sept 9, 2014, stood at B450mn.

V/Gov Vikrom also yesterday confirmed, as if without question, that under the contract with “Wall and Tesco” the new provincial hall is expected to be completed by next year – not this year as touted in only December.

“The contract starts from Dec 14 last year and lasts until June 22, 2022,” he said.

“At this stage, about 18.12% of the work [to be done by “Wall and Tesco”] was scheduled to be complete, but about 20.02% has been done, so the work completed is about 1.9% ahead of schedule,” V/Gov Vikrom said.

“Sixty-four of 555 days of the construction [under the “Walls and Tesco” contract] have been completed so far without any problems,” he added.

“The contractor came on the construction site Dec 21 last year, and the [construction] foreman went to examine the hall building on Dec 24. There will be another examination in accordance with the project schedule in the future,” V/Gov Vikrom said.