FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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PM: I won’t help my brother

PM: I won’t help my brother

PRAYUT ‘won’t intervene’ in construction inquiry, as 850 officials face rice probes.

PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha has pledged that he will not give extra help to younger brother, Gen Preecha Chan-o-cha, if there is an investigation into Preecha’s activities.
Meanwhile, the Prayut government will pursue 850 cases against state officials involved in the previous government's rice-pledging scheme to seek an additional |compensation of Bt142 billion after proceeding with a Bt35-billion civil liability lawsuit against former premier Yingluck Shinawatra.
On the controversy surrounding his younger brother, Prayut said: “I love him but there is nothing I can do to help. Let them probe him if they want to. I just can’t explain anything out of the blue. Don’t you trust the judicial process?”
Prayut was referring to the National Anti-Corruption Commission which last week received a petition that Preecha and four other military officials should be investigated for awarding concessions to a company belonging to Preecha’s son Prathompol.
According to Isra News Agency, Prathompol’s Contemporary Construction Limited Partnership owned concessions of at least 11 state construction projects, seven of which were from the Third Army Area and worth Bt 97.65 million.
But the company, from the day of registration to 2015, owned only Bt 1.78 million worth of construction gear and a pickup truck.
The company also had neither land property nor an office building, Isra News Agency said.
Its address as registered with the Department of Business Development, however, shows that the company is located in the Third Army Area in Phitsanulok. It is also Prathompol’s address as indicated in his national identification card.
Prayut, meanwhile, said that Preecha’s team had already prepared evidence regarding the construction scandals but refused to elaborate. “He [Preecha] and I are different persons. This is nothing about me at all. Don’t mix up things altogether,” he said.
On the rice-pledging scheme, government spokesman Maj-Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd said lower-ranking state officials and some private-sector personnel had also been found to have played a role in alleged wrongdoing, and the |Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) and other agencies were following up these cases in 33 provinces.
The overall financial damage during 2012-14 production seasons totalled Bt178 billion, of which 20 per cent was attributed to Yingluck for allegedly failing to heed warnings from the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to review the farm price subsidy scheme, resulting in heavy state losses.
He said Nakorn Sawan currently has about 200 cases relating to the rice-pledging scheme while Kampheangpet province has more than 100 cases in which lower-ranked officials and private sector personnel committed wrongdoing such as buying the wrong types of paddy rice or recording an inaccurate amount of rice.
These cases will have a statute of limitations of two years starting from the date suspects are identified by investigators.
Sources said suspects in these cases include commerce, agriculture and finance ministry officials as well as the Marketing Organisation for Farmers, privately-owned rice mill operators, surveyors, warehouse operators and exporters.
In addition, members of the previous Yingluck government's National Rice Policy Committee would also be named as suspects liable for civil compensation.
On the rice-pledging scheme, Prayut also said the finance minister could be assigned to sign an order that former PM Yingluck Shinawatra pay Bt 35.7 billion in compensation to the state to cover losses from the scheme.
Last week, Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn, on behalf of Prayut, signed an order demanding Bt20 billion in compensation from former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and five former officials for alleged bogus government-to-government rice deals.
When asked why he would not sign the order himself, Prayut said that the Commerce Ministry did not force him to do so. 
“This is actually the [Commerce] ministry’s responsibility since its officials are members of the committee [investigating the scheme],” Prayut said.
There are another 850 cases related to the scheme, that still need to be investigated, Prayut said.
Prayut also stressed that his use of sweeping power of the interim charter’s Article 44 with regard to the rice-pledging scheme was only to protect investigating officials |and to bring such cases to judicial procedure by its deadline next February.
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