A BANGKOK Thesakij city regulation enforcement officer surrendered to police yesterday and confessed to arranging cheating during the police entrance exams last month, city police chief Pol Lt-General Sanit Mahathaworn said.

The move followed a complaint by Metropolitan Police Bureau’s Training Centre chief Pol Colonel Uthen Nuiphin on Sunday about Pathumwan-based Thesakij officer Jiraphot Plaidoung and 346 applicants seeking to be police. Another 178 applicants are expected to face a similar complaint soon.

Sanit said that during a one-hour interrogation, Jiraphot admitted he had offered to facilitate cheating on entrance exams to people who were attending tutorial schools in Pathumwan to qualify as police and state officials. He said he had been operating the scheme for about a year, adding that many such cheating groups operate in Thailand, according to police.

Police have charged Jiraphot with racketeering, giving false information to police and violating the Computer Crime Act.

Sanit added that investigators would question Jiraphot further to see if the case extended to other police entrance exams or recruiting exams for other state agencies.

Sanit said Jiraphot would be taken to Ratchadapisek Criminal Court to apply for an initial detention period pending a police probe. He said investigators would object to his release on bail on the grounds that the case had an extensive adverse impact on society. An initial inquiry found that many groups were involved in cheating, Sanit said.

Deputy city chief Pol Maj-General Adul Narongsak, head of the sub-panel supervising the written test, said that police had so far interviewed 12 people of interest. He said that the initial investigation revealed as many as 300 people could be involved.

A source in the investigation team said Jiraphot would engage intelligent students at various tutorial schools to take the police test and show the answers to his customers in exchange for Bt5,000 to Bt20,000 per head.

The initial probe found many of the hired students in the police exam also took part in tests for other state agencies that required a minimum Mathayom 6 education, the source said.

The discovery of cheating prompted national police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda to order acting deputy Pol General Dechnarong Suticharnbancha, who oversees police recruitment policy, to investigate the Metropolitan Police Bureau, Provincial Police regions 1 to 9, the Southern Border Provinces Police Bureau and the Border Patrol Police Bureau to determine if there had been further dishonesty.

Chakthip yesterday said Dechnarong had initially reported that two units, the Metropolitan Police Bureau and the Provincial Police Region 7, had been affected by similar cheating schemes and a further investigation would be carried out to determine if the same group was involved.

Chathip said he would await the report from the two commands before deciding whether to pass the cases on to the Royal Thai Police.

He said any future investigation would be handled by a team led by Dechnarong and would involve the Police Education Bureau and litigation officers.

The city police exam, held at Ramkhamhaeng University’s Bang Na and Hua Mark campuses, was held to recruit 1,800 officers out of 13,000 applicants.

Officers became suspicious of cheating after completed exam papers were checked, with one applicant scoring the highest 123 points, from a possible total of 150, while 50 applicants scored only 13.

It was initially found that university students, some studying medicine, were hired to take the test and allowed applicants who had paid the fee to see their correct answers.

The university students allegedly sabotaged their own answers and got the lowest scores to avoid being caught but some later admitted they had participated in cheating.

Eleven provinces were warned to expect more heavy downpours yesterday and today, as many areas of the South remained inundated following the heaviest rains in 30 years.

[Earlier developments]

The severe flooding came after “the worst rainfall in more than 30 years”, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha told reporters yesterday, as the death toll reached 21.

His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn, meanwhile, has voiced concern for people affected by the southern floods, Deputy Premier Wissanu Krea-ngam said yesterday.

Privy councillors Paiboon Koomchaya, Dapong Rattanasuwan and Wirat Chinvinijkul met with the prime minister at Government House for 40 minutes yesterday, during which they relayed the King’s concern and inquired about how the government will aid victims in need of food and shelter, Wissanu said.

Wissanu said the government would officially open its coordination centre to aid the flood victims today. The aid coordination centre is at the Prime Minister’s Office.

The Cabinet meeting today will involve related agencies such as the Agriculture and Co-operatives Ministry and the Interior Ministry in talks on measures to help flood victims, Wissanu said.

There are fears that the flooding will get worse and could be exacerbated by landslides in at-risk areas.

The 11 provinces warned of more rain are Ranong, Phang Nga, Phuket, Krabi, Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chumphon, Surat Thani, Phattthalung, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Trang.

In Nakhon Si Thammarat yesterday, there was a landslide at the Thung Song-Ron Phibun section of Highway No 41, where motorists were forced to use one lane to transit the area.

Nakhon Si Thammarat Airport also announced an additional suspension of services for today and tomorrow due to a flooded runway. Technicians are scheduled to inspect the runway and the airport’s electronics systems today.

Meanwhile, Lower Pak Phanang Irrigation Office director Kornnarom Wannakul said the Pak Phanang River basin was inundated with 1 billion cubic metres of floodwater, which would take up to 20 days to drain.

In Sichon district in Nakhon Si Thammarat, soldiers from the Fourth Special Warfare Camp yesterday trekked six kilometres to aid residents of Ban Huai Kaew (Moo 3), where about 50 homes were damaged by floodwaters and a bridge connecting the village to the outside world was destroyed.

In a separate assessment, Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation chief Chatchai Phromlert said the floods had affected 958,602 residents in 12 provinces since January 1. But the situation had only improved in Yala. As well as 21 reported deaths as of yesterday, two people were missing while five state offices, 218 road sections and 59 bridges were damaged, he said.

Chatchai cited a Meteorological Department report showing an active low pressure system over the Andaman Sea that will reach the Gulf of Martaban in Myanmar today. That was expected to cause persistent to torrential rain for the 11 at-risk provinces, potentially resulting in landslides.

He also warned small-boat owners to stay ashore for two to three days.

The Education Ministry yesterday announced that 2,253 schools in the South had suffered flood damage worth Bt768 million.

In Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Bang Saphan district, five days of heavy rain caused Klong Bang Saphan to rise, resulting in flooding in various areas.

At Bang Saphan Hospital, officials erected sandbag barriers and installed water pumps. Although the hospital was not flooded, its surgery and childbirth services were suspended as equipment was removed as a precaution, while 30 critical patients out of the 100 being treated at the facility were moved to a six-storey building on the hospital grounds as a precaution.

As rain continued, three reservoirs in Bang Saphan were at capacity, while Anubal Bang Saphan School closed.

In Krabi’s Muang district, which was hit by flash flooding on Sunday, water receded and the bodies of two drowned men were recovered.

Muang Krabi Municipality mayor Kiratisak Phukaoluan said 400 homes in the area had been damaged, mostly along Klong Krabi Yai, where the flooding was more extensive than that seen during the 2011 floods. His office has set up a flood-aid centre at Thesabal 1 Talad Kao School. Khao Phanom district reported that a 60-year-old woman was missing as a result of Sunday’s flooding.

A traffic policeman in Muang Krabi, Sgt-Major Kritthanapol Samranjit, was swept away by floodwaters on Sunday night after he saved a child from drowning, but he was found alive in a bamboo stand at 2am yesterday. The exhausted cop was rushed to Krabi Hospital and released later yesterday.

In Trang, whose six districts were declared flood-disaster zones affecting 50,000 people, various state offices continued to remain closed along with 25 schools including the 1,800-

student Saparachinee 2 School that was under floodwater up to three metres deep.

They fear such a composition would allow interference in the media and infringement of press freedom, media representatives told government-appointed reformers at a special session.

The draft bill, currently overseen by the junta-appointed National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) mass communication committee, contains Article 41, designating a committee empowered to issue or revoke a “media licence”.

The committee would also oversee complaints about media violations of people’s rights and otherwise, the Article stipulates. Its 13 members would include four permanent secretaries from the Prime Minister’s Office, Digital Economy and Society Ministry, Culture Ministry and Finance Ministry.

This has raised concerns among six major media groups that allowing such high-ranking governmental officials to cast their eyes over deliberations could lead to a restrictive atmosphere.

The draft is due to be presented to the NRSA for endorsement next month. If approved, it would be proposed to the Cabinet and the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) respectively following legislative procedures.

Thepchai Yong, chairman of the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA), said there were serious concerns about political interference in the media’s work. The state officials on the committee could be seen as representing political interests, with the power to block the media in the performance of its work, he said.

In addition, he said, officials are supposed to be subject to media scrutiny. “It is not a case that we, the media, cannot be touched or that we only think of ourselves, but we are concerned about the impact on freedom and the people’s right to information. If the media is blocked, so is our society,” said Thepchai. “We may be wrong sometimes but by issuing a new regulation to blanket everything runs against the principle of media reform.”

Developing self-regulation Thepchai said that the media’s current self-regulation, though not completely effective, has been constantly developed. “It should be noted that we mainstream media are distinctive from [non-established online] social media outlets,” he said. “While people may think that media are all the same, us and them should be treated differently.”

Thepchai joined other key figures from the National Press Council (NPCT), News Broadcasting Council, Thai Journalists Association (TJA), Online News Providers Association, and the Thailand Cable TV Association in speaking to the NRSA committee on the draft.

Yesterday’s session was a follow-up to a letter the six groups co-proposed to the NRSA last month on their concerns.

NPCT president Chavarong Limpattamapanee said that an earlier version of the draft, deliberated by the Council of State in 2012, should instead be revived as it encouraged media self-regulation and ethics promotion via a committee comprising experts in various fields. “I don’t think that print media should be regulated like television and radio,” Chavarong said, countering the NRSA committee’s point. “The latter two are national communication resources while the print media are private industries.”

The NRSA committee, meanwhile, responded that the bill draft had “a long way to develop” as it would be screened by the main NRSA, the Cabinet and the NLA. However, they said media regulation laws should be in place to keep up with fast-changing online platforms.

NRSA committee head ACM Kanit Suwannet said the media’s proposals would be considered and attached to the committee’s report, while remaining non-committal on whether the media proposals would bring about any change in the draft.

Another committee member, Permpong Chavalit, said the bill was needed to help regulate media work amid the rapid development of |technology.