Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn, chief of the Phaya Sua, or “King Tiger”, wildlife crimes taskforce, made the assertion after meeting with police investigators who were collecting evidence regarding a case against Premchai for a civil suit.

Prosecutors have recommended that police gather evidence to seek compensation from Premchai, who faces various charges relating to alleged poaching in the wildlife sanctuary in Kanchanaburi province in February.

Prosecutors will decide whether to file the civil suit in a few days.

Chaiwat told investigators that the total financial damage from Premchai’s alleged poaching amounted to Bt3,012,000. This is based on the financial value attributed to animals whose remains were found at his campsite.

Chaiwat said he had been assigned by Thanya Netithammakul, director-general of the National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Department, to estimate the damage from the alleged poaching.

When Premchai and his three companions were arrested in the sanctuary in early February, officials found the remains of a butchered black leopard, a barking deer and a Kalij pheasant.

“Based on the price when Chiang Mai Safari bought a black leopard in 2006, buying a black leopard costs Bt462,000 and another Bt2,550,000 for the cost of breeding a black leopard and returning it to nature, which required five years.”

The sum was based on the previous breeding, protection and return of tigers to nature projects in western forests, Kaengkrajarn forest and Khao Pratabchang breeding station, he said.

Regarding the Kalij pheasant, the cost was Bt22,612, based on breeding data at Doi Tung breeding station in Chiang Rai province.

However, Chaiwat said the financial damage only related to the wildlife, while the loss to the ecological system of wildlife and plants was incalculable.

ALTHOUGH THERE are a limited number of double-decker coaches in Thailand, official regulations and monitoring of the vehicles needed to be improved, a road safety expert said after an accident killed 18 people at Nakhon Ratchasima on Wednesday night.

Many old buses that had not met current standards were still allowed to operate, while monitoring measures using GPS tracking were not effective to prevent accidents, Academic Centre for Road Safety director Dr Thanapong Jinvong said yesterday.

There were about 7,000 double-decker buses on the country’s roads, 1,500 of which were fixed-route transport buses and the remaining 5,500 operating as private for-hire vehicles, which were more problematic, because most of those vehicles did not meet current safety standards, he said.

“Many of the double-decker buses that registered before 2014 do not pass essential safety standards, such as the height of the bus being over 4.2 metres, and do not pass inclination tests at 30 degrees, so it is very risky if these buses to drive on dangerous and steep routes,” he said.

Although almost all buses already have GPS tracking installed, monitoring systems have proven ineffective in preventing accidents, because there is not a direct warning system linking the monitoring centre to drivers, and the speed limit for the vehicles is set at 90 kilometres per hour, regardless of the terrain and geographical features of the roads.

“The GPS system should also have different speed limits for the buses that fit the nature of each route, as it is far too fast for buses to drive nearly 90 kilometres per hour on steep and narrow roads,” Thanapong said.

However, the bus involved in the accident in Nakhon Ratchasima was equipped with GPS and it had been travelling at only 80 kilometres per hour.

The driver of the coach was arrested yesterday in the northeastern province and tested positive for substance use, provincial police chief Pol Maj-General Watcharin Boonkhong said yesterday.

The driver, identified as Krissana Juthacheun, was still insisting that he had lost control of the vehicle resulting in the crash because of a brake malfunction, Watcharin said. Krissana, who fled the scene after the crash, will undergo further testing to determine what narcotics he had ingested.

The coach was chartered by a group of mill operators and their families from Kalasin province to visit the beach province of Chanthaburi on Monday.

The vehicle was on its way back to Kalasin when the driver lost control while entering a downhill curve, drove across a road island and slammed into trees and five roadside stalls in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Wang Nam Khieo district, Nakhon Ratchasima Governor Wichien Jantaranothai said.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was concerned about the event and had instructed Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith to ask about progress in helping victims on Wednesday night.

Drivers on Highway Number 304, which sees frequent accidents, had to be cautious because the route was hilly and curvy, Wichien said. Authorities have posted traffic signs, painted traffic lines and installed barriers along the road as well as occasionally set up checkpoints to warn motorists.

Last December, Thailand was ranked first on the list of countries in terms of road fatalities by the World Atlas website, while the World Health Organisation revealed that the road accident death rate in Thailand was 36.2 deaths per 100,000.

According to the Road Accidents Data Centre, there have already been 3,762 deaths from road accidents since New Year through yesterday and 229,346 people injured.

“I am afraid we are going to repeat the mistake of the United States,” said Asst Professor Athapol Anunthavorasakul, a lecturer at the Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education and director of the Thai Civic Education Centre.

He said he suspected that the government’s definition of public schools would be similar to charter schools in the US.

A charter school receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located.

“But charter schools have finally become more like private schools and they can charge parents for services. In the end, their presence turns state schools into educational institutes for second-class citizens,” Athapol said.

He added that he feared the introduction of something like charter schools in Thailand would only widen the educational gap in the country.

Athapol said policymakers should have consulted all relevant parties before pushing ahead with the public school policy.

“Why don’t you ask teachers, school executives, students and parents first?” he said.

The respected education expert was speaking in response to the Education Ministry’s recent announcement that it would introduce public schools at the start of the coming academic year or within the next two months.

Athapol said the use of the term public school was in itself confusing.

“In fact, a public school is a state school,” he said.

According to the Education Ministry, public schools will have greater independence than other state schools. The boards of the public schools will comprise members of the public, private, civil and university sectors.

Athapol said it was not clear how much independence public schools would enjoy.

“Will the Office of the Auditor-General be able to investigate public schools? What if a lack of transparency happens at public schools?” he asked.

He said the powerful boards of public schools, or the so-called “super-boards”, could be a double-edged sword.

“If the wrong people get on to super-boards, public schools will be profit-seeking zones,” Athapol said.

He also asked whether the Education Ministry had already prepared a monitoring system and proper implementation guidelines.

Deputy Education Minister Udom Kachintorn has said public schools would be by status state schools and receive government subsidies.

“But they can raise funds from the private sector. They can also design their curriculum based on a central curriculum,” he said.

According to Udom, public schools could, for example, choose 40 per cent of their senior secondary-education curriculum’s content. He added that the super-board of a public school could also manage its own recruitment and even pay higher wages to teaching staff when compared with teachers at state schools, judging that their mission might require greater job responsibilities.

He said his ministry initially planned to set up just one public school per province in the first phase of the initiative.

“But we may consider more if more schools are ready to transform,” he said, adding that vocational schools were also welcome to join the programme.

Mechai Viravaidya, who heads the public school implementation committee, said the Office of Basic Education Commission and the Office of Vocational Education Commission were welcome to submit lists of schools they believed were suitable for transformation into public schools.

“Private firms that support Pracharath schools can also propose schools for the transformation,” he said, referring to the government’s Pracharath, or “state of the people”, initiative.

Schools that believed they were ready for transformation could also apply to join the public school initiative, he added.

“Then, we will choose the qualified ones. For example, executives, teachers, students and local communities must really share the determination to pursue the public school concept,” Mechai said.

He said his committee would also take into account schools’ performance as assessed by Connext Ed, the public-private initiative for sustainable education under the government’s Pracharat, or “state of the people”, programme.

Assoc Professor Prapapat Niyom, who heads the Arsom Silp Institute of the Arts and founded the Roong Aroon School, said she believed public schools would be like an exemplary school in Buri Ram’s Lam Plai Mat district.

“I think it is a good idea if the initiative has consistency and continuity,” Prapapat said.

She added that the public school initiative was going to provide new constructive input, while the chance of success was related to collaboration among all parties involved.

“If all parties involved develop clear key performance indicators and work as a team with children’s interests at the heart of their efforts, the initiative should be able to deliver good results,” she said.

The accident claimed the lives of 18 people, all of them from Kalasin province’s Muang district.

“This was my first visit to another province,” said 55-year-old Kalasin woman Somjit Jampasri, who narrowly escaped death.

There was a cheerful atmosphere in the coach, with people smiling and enjoying themselves listening to music, as revealed by video clips uploaded by passengers before the crash and now circulating on social networks.

Somjit, who was among the 32 injured passengers, said she and 12 relatives had joined the tour group for a vacation to the beachside town of Chanthaburi, but tragically she lost eight relatives in the crash.

“The vacation trip turned into a devastating experience for me. Many of my relatives were killed. I saw bodies and blood everywhere,” she said.

Before the crash in Wang Nam Khieo district, Somjit recalled the bus shaking and veering from side to side. She heard someone shout “the brake isn’t working”. On an impulse, Somjit said she pulled her 12-year-old nephew Thewarat Wilachai into her arms as they rushed to sit on the upper deck to brace for impact. The instinctive action helped save her and the boy. “I prayed all of us would survive,” she said.

The group’s tour guide, Sompit Sutthichum, 51, and her family members – her husband Prayong Wangpikul, 50, and their two nephews – died in the accident.

A relative of Sompit, Pairoj Wanpukil, 58, told Kalasin Governor Kraisorn Kongchalard, who visited the victims’ families yesterday morning, that their whole family had been killed in the crash. “The family had good things going for them before this crash. It was most unfortunate,” Pairoj said.

“This is possibly the most devastating road crash ever in the province,” Kraisorn said. He also assured the deceased victims’ relatives that the Kalasin branch of the Office of Insurance Commission had reported the bus’s insurance company would pay Bt650,000 compensation to the families of each of the deceased.

The centre, for instance, allocated up to Bt23.7 million for a royal project about San Kamphaeng Village Village even though the population was just 3,321 people.

In addition, the project allegedly disbursed most of the cash without proper documentation.

“In most cases, the disbursement was made even without the copies of the recipients’ national identification cards,” Pol General Jarumporn Suramanee, a board member of the Office of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), said yesterday.

He is currently in Chiang Mai to look into the operations of the development centre. The centre is under scrutiny after the PACC detected suspicious practices at nearly 50 protection centres for the destitute and several other highland people development centres.

Jarumporn said a preliminary examination of signatures on the project’s receipts also suggested that they might have been signed by just a few people. “It seems the signatories are the same persons as those filling the whole form,” he said.

Jarumporn said the kamnan of Tambon Mae Ta was also identified as an alleged recipient of the welfare money but he has denied receiving any money. According to the kamnan, the list of recipients used by the centre even included persons who lived outside Thailand.

AUTHORITIES ARE considering providing financial assistance from the state to poor people only via e-payments, so as to be able track them for transparency.

Social Development and Welfare Department (SDWD) director-general Napa Setthakorn said yesterday relevant authorities had considered the measure in the hope of preventing corruption in the wake a recent nationwide scandal.

“We may also require that pictures of people receiving the help be taken,” Napa said.

The Office of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) has detected huge irregularities in the disbursement of state funds via protection centres to the destitute in 49 provinces.

The centres are under the supervision of the SDWD.

Napa mentioned many measures could be introduced to prevent corruption, after she held a meeting with PACC acting secretary-general Lt-Colonel Korntip Daroj.

During the meeting, the two discussed how to prevent the abuse of state funds for the destitute in fiscal year 2018.

Napa believed an e-payment system such as Prompt Pay could work, even for people living in remote areas.

Given that Prompt Pay accounts are associated with mobile telephone numbers or national identification card numbers, it would be clear who are the recipients of state funds, Napa said.

The ongoing probe by the PACC has found that receipts for the funds, even signed, could have been forged. Available evidence suggests local officials forged signatures of poor people to embezzle money.

Napa said her agency had randomly checked documents about the disbursement of state funds, but found documents prepared by provincial centres were correct.

The PACC started investigating protection centres for the destitute after a student from the Mahasarakham University, who was posted as a trainee at the Khon Kaen Protection Centre for the Youth and detected suspicious practices, blew the whistle.

In a recent interview with The Nation, Korntip said he hoped state agencies would announce publicly who would be eligible to receive state funds or state-provided help, and how much money or help they would receive.

“When people know their rights, they will protect them,” he said.

Korntip pointed out how local people in Nakhon Phanom province had collaborated in gathering evidence of alleged irregularities after learning about the corruption scandal.

“One of them recorded the voice of a school director who seemed to try to cover the corruption in his province while another took a picture,” he said.

The clip and picture handed over to the PACC suggested that the school director had asked people to lie to the PACC and paid them between Bt50 and Bt100.

“There are only 4,587 more workers to undergo the procedure,” he said, adding that 155,310 migrant workers had already undergone identity verification scanning.

The workers yet to be scanned were in Rayong, Pattani, Samut Prakan, Chachoengsao, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Ranong, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Chon Buri, Samut Songkhram, and Chanthaburi.

Iris scanning is part of the government’s policy to collect data and legalise 159,897 migrant workers from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar who work in fishery, fish/seafood processing and fishery establishments in 22 coastal provinces.

The iris scanning process is more accurate than other means, such as fingerprinting or photo identification. Iris scanning can also prevent subrogation, identity theft or other problems, Adul said.

“Some tourists have not followed the rules. They climbed on ancient structures instead of using stairways,” Channarong Kaewruang, a historian working at the Ayutthaya Historical Park, said yesterday.

Inspired by the popular Ayutthaya period TV drama “Buppesannivas”, or “Love Destiny”, more than 10,000 tourists have recently visited the temple each day.

An artisan who is repairing the historic site said many bricks had fallen off the structure because tourists had climbed on it.

The historical park has erected boards warning tourists about banned behaviour.

Nattakorn Heepkaew, a 29 year-old tourist from Chon Buri, said he respected the rules and hoped others would do the same.

“We need to help conserve such historical sites or else such impressive sites will disappear in the future,” he said.

There have been a series of high-profile cases related to historic sites in Ayutthaya recently, including uproar after a group of Thai tourists posted photos of themselves posing on temples under the hashtag “gang of sinners”.

A relative of Sompit, Pairoj Wanpukil, told Kalasin Governor Kraisorn Kongchalard, who visited victims’ families on Thursday morning, that the whole family had been killed in the crash. Kraisorn assured the deceased victims’ relatives that the Kalasin office of the Office of Insurance Commission had reported that the bus’s insurance company would pay Bt650,000 compensation for each death.

An additional 32 people were injured. The governor also set up a temporary centre at Muang city hall to identify the bodies. The coach had been chartered by a group of mill operators and their families to visit Chanthaburi on Monday.

The vehicle was on its way back to Kalasin when the driver lost control while entering a downhill curve, drove across a road island and slammed into trees and five roadside stalls in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Wang Nam Khieo district.