Abhisit invites city governor to discuss 'dodgy' CCTV cameras
Play
DEMOCRAT Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva plans to meet with Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra in response to criticism that security cameras purchased by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration are of poor quality and many are out of order.
He did not reveal the date of the meeting but said the governor had returned from a trip to Malaysia.
Watchara Petchthong, a former Democrat MP, said the cameras could not improve safety – pointing to what he claimed was the theft of Bt3 million in valuables from a house in Bangkok and the potential failure of closed-circuit television cameras in the area to record the perpetrator(s) because they were not working.
He called on the BMA to reveal the contract details for the purchase of the cameras to see if there was corruption involved.
Abhisit said: “I’ve talked to Watchara about the matter. It is simply their [the party’s] duty to conduct an examination when people file complaints, not have conflict inside the party.”
Sukhumbhand represented the Democrat Party when he won the gubernatorial election for Bangkok in 2009. Bangkok has been a key Democrat Party political base for a long time.
Sukhumbhand has not yet responded to the calls for him to examine the purchase of the cameras but his team held a press conference that angered Watchara.
Senior BMA officials claimed that Watchara had politicised the matter, an accusation he denied.
He said the BMA had yet to reply to a letter in which he asked for the purchase contracts for the cameras.
If the governor considers himself a party member, he should be aware that the party would be affected by the matter, he said.
Watchara said the BMA planned to install 100,000 new security cameras in Bangkok with a budget of Bt40 billion and about 50,000 had been installed.
