News
16 million Baht budget for second lifeguard auction

The OrBorJor Phuket has announced it will launch another auction to supply Phuket lifeguard services offering a budget of 16 million Baht. The date shall be confirmed within this month.
Meanwhile, Satien Kaewpraprab, deputy secretary of the OrBorJor Phuket revealed that the organisation has been hiring individual lifeguards to station at 7 beaches which started on November 1, including Nai Harn Beach, Yanui Beach, Kamala Beach, Patong Beach, Surin Beach, Bangtao Beach, Nai Thorn Beach and Maikhao Beach. The total number of lifeguards at the 24 spots around the 7 beaches is 63 people.
However for Kata, Karon and Nai Yang Beach the OrBorJor is still searching for individual lifeguards which will add another 32 people to the lifeguard roster employed by the OrBorJor. Currently only Royal Thai Navy officers, Civil Defense volunteers and Tourist Security Guard volunteers are servicing those three beaches.
“We believe that this second round will get more people interested in tendering during the auction. However if there’s no new contractors tendering we have already found a solution for it by hiring individual lifeguards as we are doing now,” said Satien.
He noted that for the next budget year the OrBorJor is planning with the local administration offices to let them run their own tender auction to provide lifeguards in their areas which is one way to avoid the same issue – trying to find a single contractor for all the island’s beaches.
“We believe that the problem won’t happen again as we have discussed with the local administration offices and we will support them with the budget while allowing them to hire lifeguards by themselves.”
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harry1
Saturday, November 18, 2017 at 4:29 pm
so disappointing give the previous life guards setup the money they deserve they were doing a great job people lives are more important recruiting locals off the street is short term and fatal ?
Honest Person
Monday, November 20, 2017 at 7:12 am
Some of those lifeguards behave more like beach mafia than professional lifeguards especially at Surin beach. I’ve seen them surround swimmers after they exit the water and intimidate them which is NOT how a professional lifeguard should behave.
I think they should hire lifeguards from another country. Less lifeguards who provide a more professional service would save more lives. At present there’s over 100 drownings per year in Phuket.
Most but not all of the current lifeguards are useless.
harry1
Monday, November 20, 2017 at 11:49 am
l know what you saying can be very authoritarian but there are many dumb tourist out there ? but the or bor tor new life guards are unrecognisable if there are any ? whilst the tourist are swimming in red flag unchallenged a recipe for disaster governor give them the money very deserve and get the previous set up asap