National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) Secretary-General Sansern Poljieak said the agency would look into how the two former administrations managed water supply in the dams to see if they should be deemed responsible for the flooding.

He said the ongoing investigation stemmed from complaints filed with the previous NACC against the governments of Abhisit and Yingluck, both of whom were accused of mismanaging water supplies and causing disastrous flooding.

Abhisit’s Democrat-led government preceded Yingluck’s Pheu Thai-led administration.

“The NACC is working in a fair manner. We are not focused on finding faults against Yingluck Shinawatra or the Pheu Thai Party as alleged,” Sansern said.

He was responding to allegations made by the former ruling party and former PM Yingluck that the NACC seemed to be coming up with more and more cases against them.

Yingluck and a number of her former Cabinet members are facing legal action stemming from their government’s corruption-plagued rice-pledging scheme.

The disastrous flooding in 2011 was blamed on alleged mismanagement of the country’s water supplies at different dams. Critics said the dams were holding too much water at a time when the country was hit by a series of rainstorms.

The flooding lasted more than five months and affected 65 of the country’s 77 provinces, including Bangkok. It left more than 800 people dead and damaged property worth more than Bt1.4 trillion.

Meanwhile, pressure from Yingluck’s lawyers have resulted in Supa Piyajitti, an NACC commissioner, to quit an investigative subcommittee probing the former prime minister, Sansern said yesterday.

Yingluck’s lawyers argued that Supa had been affected by the Yingluck government’s decisions while she was serving in the Finance Ministry and that fact could influence her judgement.

Supa has quit the panel that is investigating an allegation of Yingluck failing to require state agencies to disclose the median prices in procurement for government projects. Supa served as deputy permanent secretary of the Finance Ministry at the time hence she decided to leave the panel.

She still sits on five other subcommittees probing different allegations against Yingluck and her former Cabinet members.

Sansern explained that Supa sits in so many subcommittees investigating former Cabinet members because she is the NACC member in charge of corruption cases involving politicians.

In a related development, Government Spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd yesterday rejected an allegation by Yingluck’s supporters that the post-coup government was persecuting members of her administration.

He said this government was simply enforcing the law against alleged wrongdoers, including politicians.

“The cases proceed under the normal process and there is no rush. Yingluck should not compare what happens under this government to similar cases in the past, when legal action was rarely taken against politicians. As a result, many wrongdoers went scot-free,” the spokesman said.

“This government wants laws to be enforced fairly on all groups of people,” he added.

Meanwhile, Democrat Party politician Charnchai Issarasenarak yesterday blamed mismanagement of water supply by the Yingluck government for the severe flooding in 2011. He said that water gates were closed to keep some provinces dry, which caused a lot of water mass to enter Bangkok and the surrounding provinces.

He said politicians in power at that time were pushing for a massive budget of Bt350 billion for water management projects and big floods would have been a boon for their plan. The Democrat claimed those politicians would “get some commission” from the massive funding.