Lofty computer prices for the city?

Dear Pattaya Mail;

This letter is in regard to your article about Pattaya City Hall spending almost a million baht for 10 computers for the "schools". At our computer club meeting last Friday, it was with great interest that your article "Pattaya City to buy computers for schools" on page 3, 10 April 1998 edition, was read out loud. After much "head shaking" and a few outright guffaws, we have a few questions.

(1) We want to know where the shop is in Thailand that is offering these latest technology releases? At the prices mentioned, these computers MUST be of the highest quality. All over Thailand, we can obtain fully loaded, top of the line, best available computers for less than 40,000 Baht each. We are curious as to what the specifications are for the computers the City is buying?

(2) All mention of the Laser printers are, at a minimum, 25% too high. We are also curious as to who will maintain these expensive printers and if City Hall understands how high the price of toner is?

(3) The best quality "high speed laser printer" and the best quality "high resolution scanner" we can find in Thailand are priced at least 30% lower. Where is City Hall finding this, what must be, top of the line equipment?

(4) The best back-up generators (we assume you mean UPS) that Thailand makes, cost an average of 5,500 Baht each. Are we to assume the UPSs Pattaya City is buying are very large capacity and top of the line?

(5) None of us can recall a request for bids for computer equipment. Was it published? Who were the other bidders and what were their bids?

(6) Which "schools" in Pattaya are these top of the line computers going to and for whose use? Of the 10 government schools we have visited, we found only 2 teachers who were trained well enough to know how to turn a computer on. Only one of these teachers knew how to shut the computer down! So who will train the "users"? And taking it one step further, will the "users" then teach the children? If so, there will be a lot of students around 10 computers. Or maybe this price includes projectors and not monitors? If these computers are going out to the "schools", where are the "high speed Laser printer" and "high resolution scanner" going?

(7) There is no mention of software to be included in the purchase. Are the computers coming without software? Maybe that is where all the high prices come from, since perhaps City Hall is purchasing licensed and registered programs for the "schools" use!

(8) If the software is included, who is instructing the "users" in its use?

(9) Did the "Pattaya Committee" speak to any "computer types", or just receive bids from sales agents?

These questions come only because "transparency" was mentioned in the article. The prices quoted above are genuine and are not even the prices that can be obtained through "quantity" purchases. They are just advertised prices any individual can obtain, with no haggling, in Pattaya and throughout Thailand. It seems that an average person on the street could purchase the above equipment on their own, in the quantities quoted by City Hall, and would save at least 350,000 Baht!

As a computer club, we do not sell computers, we are just interested in the welfare of Pattaya City and the community as a whole. Our charity project of providing computers to Pattaya schools and the instruction of the Thai teachers in their use, mandates that I write this letter, even at the risk of invoking the wrath of any "influential persons". If what was published is "transparency", give me good old corruption and sweet-heart deals any day. At least I can understand that! All questions and opinions are my own and bear no reflection upon the opinions of the Pattaya Computer Club nor the Pattaya Sports Club. Will Khun Somsak Yomjinda (Pattaya City Manager) respond "transparently" to these questions? We shall see.

Signed,

A very concerned expat

Editor’s reply: We sent our investigative reporters to city hall to try and answer as many of your questions as we could. This is what they came back with:

Pattaya City Manager Songsak Yomjinda revealed that according to Pattaya City order number 718/2540 set down on December 22, 1997, a committee had been formed to investigate the price of buying educational computers and office equipment within a budget that had been set at 999,650 baht.

The committee consisted of three members, Mr. Visit Cheoysuphaket, the Managing Director of the Treasury; Nusra Yantakovit and Sonthay Tongdee.

The city was looking for computers with the following properties: CPU InterPentium-166mhz, 16 Megabyte Ram, 256 Kilobyte cache, 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy drive, 1.6 GB hard drive, 20x CD-ROM, sound card and speakers, PCI VGA card with 2 MB V Ram, 14" SVGA Color Monitor, 104 key keyboard, Mini-tower case with 200 W power supply, and pre-loaded Windows ’95 (Thai). The city was also looking to buy computer and office equipment (as stated in the list below).

A bidding process was launched by posting notices in different organizations involved, announcing they had not less than 10 days nor more than 13 days to issue sealed bids. Two companies, the Astoria Network Computer Company Ltd. and the Union Par Co Ltd., made bids.

The committee opened the sealed envelopes on January 8th this year.

Of the two companies, Astoria Network Computer Co. Ltd’s bid of 1,004,650 baht, and their promise of delivering the merchandise within 30 days, won the contract.

The Union Par Co Ltd. had submitted a bid of 1,023,650 baht, also promising delivery of the merchandise within 30 days.

After the committee made a discount request, Astoria was willing to lower the price by 5,650 baht and provide a free UPS worth 6,600 baht, which, when combined, made an entire discount of 12,250 baht. The company also increased the speed of the CD-ROM for free.

Aside from this, the merchandise the company was offering was of the highest quality. The company also agreed to set up a workshop to train 3 city officials per machine, altogether 30 people, for free.

Pattaya City Manager Songsak Yomjinda stated that, "I have checked the properties of the computers and have received confirmation that workers and committee members are proceeding in an orderly fashion.

"I see the committee has done their work in a correct fashion according to the rules. We must believe in the qualified condition of the committee and their suitability and correctness. The (total/final) price is not over the budget we set. From the consideration of many factors, we can see that nothing has been done to cause any damage and the only thing hanging in the air is: ‘is the price too high or not?’ Here we must speak of the characteristics of the service after the sales.

"Considering repairs, improvement and training the company has offered the city in the aegis of buyer, I think that the committee has done its job with purity, justice and correctly, and has fomented good results for the general community."

Updated (corrected) list of computer equipment:

10 computer tables @ 2,600 baht each = 26,000 baht.

10 chairs @ 1,100 baht each = 11,000 baht.

10 printer tables @ 2,600 baht = 26,000 baht.

10 computers @ 60,500 baht = 605,000 baht.

10 laser printers @ 19,800 baht = 198,000 baht.

1 high speed Laser printer @ 32,450 baht.

1 high-resolution scanner @ 35,200 baht.

10 UPSs @ 6,600 baht = 66,000 baht.

The total of all the above equals 999,650 baht.

TV by the numbers

Dear Sir:

I wrote to thank our local cable TV server. It is so convenient having all those funny little numbers on the screen. They inform the viewer how many hours, minutes, seconds and half-seconds of the movie has elapsed. As the server has no programming information, these numbers show how much of the movie one has missed if you tune in after the beginning.

I also feel very honoured. There is usually a sign on the screen stating ‘not for public viewing.’ We who get to see them are, apparently, of the chosen few.

Thrilled