Paper chase stalls anti-graft panel's probe of clock scandal

The investigation into the scandal related to Parliament’s procurement of digital clocks has not gone anywhere after two months as the House secretariat has yet to submit relevant documents to the committee tasked with probing the issue. 

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives’ anti-graft committee has appointed a panel to study amending a law related to parliamentary administration that allows parliamentary officials to amend regulations on procurements.

Parliament bought 238 high-tech Bodet digital clocks for Bt14.9 million, which include satellite linkage and a maintenance system. On average, the price for each set would be Bt62,500.

The clock issue came out in public after Democrat MP Vilas Chanpitaksa, adviser to the anti-corruption committee, received complaints from parliamentary officials who suspected transparency was lacking in many of Parliament’s procurements and projects. 

Purchase of digital wall clocks for Parliament House was the first project that the House committee investigated. But it has been held back by the missing documents from Parliament officers. 

At its meeting on Thursday, the committee made another attempt to get the documents.

 

Strange expenditures

Pol Lt-General Viroj Pao-In, chairman of the committee, said that if the documents were not submitted by Tuesday before the panel meets on Thursday, it would exercise its legal power against those who refused to submit them. 

Legal action will also be launched against Suwichag Nakwatcharachai, the secretary-general of the House, for failing to produce the relevant documents, he said.

Teerachard Pangviroonrugs, deputy chairman of the anti-corruption committee, said it had questions about the House’s budgets and spending because there were irregularities in several procurement schemes, not just high-tech digital clocks but also air-conditioners for the House’s garbage room. He added that after the committee had investigated the clock case it would investigate other matters. 

“We have investigated other government offices so we should investigate the House too. I think we should clean our house when we see it is dirty,” he said. 

Teerachard added his observation that it was more likely that senior officials in Parliament had told junior officers to propose the procurement, rather than junior officials doing it themselves. 

Even if politicians were behind the procurement, it would be difficult to link anything to them, he said.

“Some parliamentary officials told me that their names had been mentioned by committee members but they didn’t know anything about the project,” Teerachard said. 

Owing to biased specifications, only one brand was eligible for the clock procurement, he said. 

According to the committee’s findings, there is only one importer of that brand. The importer had two distributing companies bid for the project, one of which has undertaken several other projects for Parliament.

Some parliamentary officials had amended procurement regulations in a way that allowed the alleged wrongdoing, he said. 

A source who asked not to be named said Parliament had already set up a committee to revert those regulations back to the original.

 

Talk of the town

Pisit Leelavachiropas, a state audit adviser and House anti-graft committee adviser, said he thought the Parliament’s projects contained irregularities and the digital-clock scandal had become the talk of the town. 

He also raised questions as to why the cost of the clocks and their support system had to be paid separately. 

The system includes a satellite linkage and connection with the high-precision timepieces. Despite this, he observed that two clocks in the same room showed different temperatures. Although the time on clocks was accurate, other components were of low quality. 

The committee has said it believes Parliament should return the clocks and scrap the procurement. 

“I think ‘quality’ does not have to mean ‘expensive’,” he said.