FORMER PREMIER Yingluck Shinawatra has urged Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to enforce the law fairly and avoid double standards in treating cases against her and those against a son of General Preecha Chan-o-cha, the premier’s younger brother.

Yingluck earlier said there were 15 criminal and civil liability lawsuits against her, including those concerning her government’s rice-pledging scheme.

Preecha’s son is facing corruption allegations concerning a number of construction contracts awarded by the Army.

On this issue, Prayut said yesterday that solid evidence was needed to back up the accusation against his younger brother, the outgoing permanent secretary for defence, after the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) received a petition concerning Preecha and other officials over the awarding of seven contracts worth Bt97.65 million to a company owned by Preecha’s son, Prathompol.

Preecha’s wife, Pongphan, also faced stirred a controversy after social media shared photos of her presiding over the opening of a dyke named after her. She also appeared to travel on an Air Force plane, triggering criticism over her privileges and her connection with the Armed Forces.

“Have those stories already proved him [Preecha] to be guilty?” Prayut said. “We don’t know yet if [those actions] are inappropriate, especially the company’s business transactions.”

Prayut also suggested that it was fine for the NACC to probe the allegations against Preecha.

“I don’t think he [Preecha] is stupid but I won’t guarantee him on my behalf,” Prayut said “He has to be responsible by himself.”

Preecha will retire as permanent secretary at the end of this month but will remain a member of the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly.

On Yingluck’s cases, Prayut denied that his government had “bullied” the ex-premier as alleged byYingluck in a Facebook post. Prayut said his government would be violating Article 157 of the Criminal Code if there were malfeasance in cases against her.

Prayut‘s response followed Saturday’s decision by a committee pursuing civil liability lawsuits thatYingluck would have to pay Bt35.7 billion in compensation to the state to cover heavy losses from her government’s rice-pledging scheme, covering two production seasons, due to the ex-premier’s failure to stop those losses after repeated warnings.

Prayut said the action was consistent with evidence and measures taken by the anti-graft body and the final ruling would be made by the courts since the government’s role was to bring this case to court before its statute of limitations expired in February next year.

Based on the Liability for Wrongful Act of Officials Act 1996, the government cannot intervene in the judiciary’s decisions.

“Is this wrong? Or do you think these cases don’t need to go to [the judicial] process at all?” he said. “Bring legal evidence here and we can talk. People are getting confused now.”

In the civil-liability case, Yingluck is facing a compensation lawsuit of Bt35 billion, representing 20 per cent of the Bt178 billion in losses shouldered by the state as a result of the rice-pledging scheme for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 production seasons.

The statement said: “Pheu Thai Party deems such action is an abuse of authority, discriminates and creates unfairness to the accused due to the following reasons … The rice-pledging case has been filed with the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions and is awaiting a court ruling.

“If the court rules that the defendants are in the wrong, then civil liability lawsuits may be filed against them. It is inappropriate for leaders to lead society into making conclusions before the court has announced its ruling.

“The rice-pledging scheme was the government’s policy to provide agricultural subsidies to support farmers who form a large and vulnerable sector of the Thai populace. The aim was to assist the farmers as a whole.”

Atthawit Suwannapakdee said he had information and statistics from the period before the House dissolution in May 2011, which showed water storage levels in major dams were relatively normal.

He said after the Yingluck government took office, |concerned agencies were allegedly instructed to hold water in the dams despite the prospect of Thailand being hit by intense depression and storms.

That resulted in excessive storage of water in the dams, which was later discharged, and was partly to blame for the severe flooding in 2011.

Atthawit viewed this as water mismanagement, |and speculated that the decision not to reduce the |dam water levels was linked to the government’s rice |policy.

Addressing the Group of 77’s ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly in New York on Friday, Prayut said: “Thailand believes that there is no absolute pattern to bring about development. For us, we have adopted the SEP that enabled us to surpass any crises we have faced. We even turned to be stronger after each [crises].”

It was one of the key events for Prayut to express Thailand’s leading capacity in the international arena despite its owngraded image since the junta staged the coup more than two years ago. At the meeting, Prayut praised the Group of 77’s progresses in carrying out the UN’s sustainable development goals, such as efforts to actualise a SDG global indicator and support the least developed countries in following the SDGs through negotiation mechanisms and south-south cooperation.

In order to achieve the SDG goals by 2030, Prayut said the countries needed substantial financial, human and knowledge resources.

He suggested that the group should seek outside cooperation, such as from the Group of 22 developed nations, to boost the developing countries’ capacities especially in terms of agricultural technology.

Prayut also suggested that the reform of domestic and international financial institutions was essential to ensure the required financial resources were accessible to all social sectors of Group of 77 nations so as to eliminate social inequality.

He stressed that the countries should boost education and the wellbeing of citizens to maximise potential. This included sensitive groups such as juveniles, the elderly, women and migrants, who should also be given equal opportunities.

 

Of 1,150 people surveyed nationwide, 63 per cent wanted sweeping powers to do so, more than 32 per cent want facts to be discovered quickly and another 31 per cent want the cases to proceed faster.

The survey “What do people think about proceedings in the rice-pledging scheme cases?” was conducted from last Wednesday to Friday.

Almost 37 per cent of respondents, meanwhile, disagreed with the use of such power as they preferred the cases to follow usual justice procedures and another 11 per cent opined that invoking Article 44 could be seen as political abuse.

The respondents’ answers followed Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s use of Article 44 to empower the Justice Ministry department to enforce laws to ensure that alleged wrongdoings by state officials are dealt with through civil liability lawsuits.

Prayut‘s order on September 13 was issued a few days before the Commerce Ministry ordered former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and five ex-ministerial officials involved in alleged bogus government-to-government rice sales to pay Bt 20 billion in compensation.

Asked what they thought about the Commerce Ministry’s order, 44 per cent said there should be other punishments in addition to the seizure of assets, almost 28 per cent said the action was “fair”, and more than 14 per cent thought that the seizure was too small in scale.

Asked how the proceedings would impact Thai society, 35 per cent said it would make politicians aware of honesty, almost 31 per cent said it would demonstrate how laws can practically punish corrupt politicians, and more than 22 per cent said it would become a case study for Thai politics.

Asked to what extent they expected the proceedings to deter officials from being corrupt, 37 per cent thought that it should do a fair bit, almost 24 per cent thought it would “do much” while more than 21 per cent thought it would not do much.

Asked how much people were satisfied with the proceedings, 33 per cent said they were fairly much satisfied, 39 per cent said they were much satisfied and 27 per cent said they were fairly satisfied.

Their remarks came after a move by the Office of the Auditor-General to push for reform of parliamentary expenditure on foreign trips considered “extravagant”.

Former Democrat Party MP Vilas Chanpitaksa said the budgets should be in place as foreign trips were necessary, especially for parliamentary committees on anti-corruption, budget scrutiny, and price guarantees.

He added, however, that overseas trips are not necessary for security and border affairs committees.

Vilas, the former head of the House of Representatives’ committee on anti-corruption, revealed that each parliamentary committee had a Bt5-million budget for overseas trips annually.

He said the money could neither be allocated to other categories of expenses nor kept, if it were not spent. All committees, therefore, arranged trips so that all the budget was spent, he added.

He said terms and conditions should also be set to regulate expenditure and to control “unproductive” expenses.

Vilas proposed that parliamentary committees that aimed to engage in inspection trips abroad should provide “clear objectives” and detailed programmes.

“They [outgoing committees] should clarify the programmes – what they do during the trips,” he said.

He suggested that Parliament could set up a committee to examine and approve such programmes to ensure they were useful and the expenses reasonable.

He told The Nation that to be fair, the examining committee should comprise representatives from different political parties to prevent problems of the past from reoccurring – MPs approving all programmes and not considering whether the cost was reasonable.

The Democrat believed that less than half the 35 parliamentary committees submitted reports on their trips, adding that Parliament previously did not follow up on the reports.

He referred to Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas’s comment that parliamentary committees rarely evaluated the effectiveness of the trips.

Former Pheu Thai MP Samart Kaewmeechai highlighted the importance of the foreign trip budget, saying that the people’s representatives should have the opportunity to study foreign works, which in turn could develop their potential.

Samart, a former deputy president of the House, defended the effectiveness of the foreign trips between 2011-14. He said then president of Parliament, Chai Chidchob, placed importance on guidelines for parliamentary overseas tours.

According to the guidelines, he said the programmes should be in line with the job description of committees while the visited countries must invite them for specific events.

He said the number of trip participants and the cost should be reasonable. The committees must also submit a trip report.

He said besides Parliament, other public organisations also had foreign trip budgets as part of human resource development, which could contribute to the country’s development.

“The development of individuals’ potential cannot be estimated by the budget amount,” he said in response to the auditor-general’s report that cited lavish spending of Bt1 billion by lawmakers over the last five years on overseas tours.

He said measures determining a trip’s success should also be used, including better relationships with visited countries and knowledge gained from trips.

The Office of the Auditor-General is to submit a report on the expenditure on foreign trips by members of the previous parliaments to lawmakers and the reform assembly.

Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas says his agency proposes enactment of a legal framework to limit “unproductive” expenses in the coming Senate and the House of Representatives.

The move is in response to rumours that members of Parliament under the administrations led by civilian prime ministers – Abhisit Vejjajiva between 2008 and 2011 and Yingluck Shinawatra from 2011 to 2014 – spent large budget sums on “nonsense” matters, including overseas inspection tours.

The most high-profile controversy in 2012 was a Bt7-million jaunt to Europe undertaken by then House speaker Somsak Kiatsura-nont with 37 others, including journalists and his daughter.

The case prompted the House panel on parliamentary affairs to investigate the matter. However, the panel said the trip spending was in line with the House’s budget. In that year, the media also described the House of Representatives under Yingluck’s rule as “getting ready to ruin and waste the budget”.

Pisit, who has served as auditor-general since August 2014 – a few months after the coup – is determined to clear up the parliamentary mess caused by politicians’ exploitation of taxpayers’ money.

The Office, under his leadership, has worked on gathering information and records on parliamentary overseas itineraries between 2011 and 2015. It will forward the findings to the National Legislative Assembly, the National Reform Steering Assembly and the ruling National Council for Peace and Order.

Pisit said he hoped the report would be primarily used to outline the legal framework to reform and regulate spending by the next Parliament. Previously the Parlia-ment did not limit the number of foreign trips in each fiscal year.

The auditor-general’s report found that over the last five years, almost Bt1 billion in total had been reimbursed from the two Houses to cover the parliamentary committees’ spending on overseas trips.

“This amount could be spent on the country’s development projects that are more productive and necessary for our country than wasted on those committees to go and chill out abroad,” Pisit remarked in an exclusive interview with The Nation.

According to the report, from 2011 to 2015 parliamentary committees comprising representatives from both Houses had reimbursed overseas trip expenses from the Lower House and the Upper House – for Bt613 million and Bt304 million respectively.

There is speculation the spending was dramatically high before the May 2014 coup, according to Pisit.

From 2011-13, the Lower House’s spending on overseas trips accounted for over Bt140 million per year, with almost Bt200 million in 2013. The Senate spent more than Bt78 million annually on such trips and saw the highest spending, Bt106 million, in 2013 as well.

However, in 2015, a year following the coup, spending on trips substantially decreased to Bt18 million for the Lower House and less than Bt1 million for the Senate.

“[This was] because after the coup, both Houses were dissolved and the spending was just backpay,” according to a source.

The record also pointed out that all 35 parliamentary committees in each fiscal year on average took two overseas trips a year. The most popular destination was the United States, followed by countries in Europe and Asia.

“Visiting the US costs a large sum of money with regards to flight tickets, hotels and allowances,” said Pisit.

He also claimed the trips were somewhat “useless” because the committees enjoyed sightseeing and shopping rather than engaging in work. He added that the committees never evaluated the effectiveness of each of the trips.

“No concrete result was available after the foreign trips,” Pisit stressed.

The frequent foreign trips also left a question mark over whether or not tour companies that serviced the committees were allies of the politicians who shared business interests with the politicians involved.

The auditor-general also questioned the need to travel abroad, saying that MPs and senators sitting in the committees were experts who already specialised in certain areas. “So why did they need to exploit the taxpayer’s money to study other countries’ work again?” he asked.

He said his team would do its best to push for parliamentary spending reform to ensure that the incoming Houses spend the public’s money effectively.

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.