No more free water – Mayor

PHUKET TOWN: Reacting to the land investigators’ comments about ownership of tin mines, the Mayor of Phuket Town has warned that an end is approaching to the city’s free ride on the tin mines for water. “We’ve been doing a good deed for the city for quite some time,” Mayor Phummisak Hongsyok told the Gazette yesterday. “Now we have to think about ourselves since [the government] say they are going to take over our land. “I calculate that for the past 15 years we have given up income, at one baht per cubic meter, of at least 3 or 4 million baht a year. You see Loch Palm? It sells 6 million [baht worth of water] a year. “About three-fifths of the water supplied by the [Phuket Town] Municipal Water Authority comes from donations,” he noted. He said that other former tin miners who had supplied free water, including the Pearl Group of Vichit Na Ranong, Kanit Yongsakul, Lurkiat Angsirikul and the family of the late Banlue Tantiwit “are all behind me”. Charges for water supplies would be phased in gradually, he said, though he declined to give a date when this would begin. He added that he had also decided to scrap a plan to donate land owned by his family for public parks after the government land probe turned the spotlight on tin-mine ownership. He acknowledged that the “crucial need” of Phuket Town, as with the rest of the island, is water. “They are still beating around the bush. The minister involved will be coming here next Saturday. “We have been in this position for the past five decades so I’m tired and I’m being outspoken about this. They don’t like me in Bangkok,” he said.