Thai Rak Thai spokesman Sita Dhivari said he learned that a review completed last month by respected academic Bunserm Weesakul, at the request of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), had a strategic price comparison excluded when released recently.

The spokesman said he had a copy of the complete version of Bunserm's findings and it showed the BMA had released a censored version.

He accused the BMA of hiding the real facts behind the Bt6.88-billion purchase contract, which indicated that the BMA was obliged to pay Austrian manufacturer Steyr Daimler Puch more than Bt8 billion for fire trucks, while locally assembled fire-trucks with the same specifications would have cost only Bt2.13 billion.

Sita claimed some of the 315 vehicles in the fleet could not be used to full capacity in Thailand because their maximum payload exceeded the legal limit. For example, a 12-wheel water tanker that can carry 10,000 litres of water would weigh 17 tonnes, which was beyond the legal limit.

"To legally use this type of truck, which cost Bt20 million, the water volume has to be limited to only 5,000 litres of water.  What the BMA has done is purchase Bt20-million tankers that cannot be [fully] used in Thailand," he said.