Red-faced Army stops ‘testing’ bogus GT200 bomb detectors

However, Army chief-of-staff General Santipong Thampiya said on Tuesday that only about 3 million of the 7.57 million baht allocated for testing the 757 GT200 devices was left.

“The testing is complete. No more proof is necessary,” he said.

He added the Army is not seeking more funds for these tests and will return what is left of the funds allocated for the tests.

“We’ll return about 3 million baht. So far, 320 of the 757 devices have been tested in detail,” he said.

In 2004, the Army had reportedly been duped by a British company and a Thai distributor into buying these devices with the belief that they can be used to detect both drugs and bombs.

The Army came under further criticism when it hired the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) for over 7 million baht to recheck these bogus GT200 devices. This waste of taxpayers’ money was exposed in Parliament by Move Forward Party MP Jirat Thongsuwan during the budget bill’s first reading this week.

Jirat asked why the Army had wasted 7.5 million baht when it already knew that the so-called GT200 were nothing but pieces of plastic with no electronic circuits inside.

On Friday, Defence Ministry spokesman General Kongcheep Tantravanich explained that NSTDA had been hired at the advice of the Attorney-General’s Office to collect evidence to use in the legal battle against the distributor.

He explained that the Army had won the first lawsuit and the Central Administrative Court ordered the distributor to pay a compensation of 683 million baht, but the company appealed and took the case to the Supreme Administrative Court.

Santipong added on Tuesday that Attorney-General’s Office has been informed of the decision to halt the tests, but the Army is still waiting for a response.

“I hereby affirm that the Army has always used the taxpayers’ money for worthwhile projects,” Santipong insisted.