Video footage ‘implicates school director’

A VIDEO CLIP showing a school director lobbying local people to tell lies in an apparent bid to protect the allegedly corrupt chief of the Nakhon Phanom Protection Centre for the Destitute has been handed over to anti-graft officials.
The clip, now in the hands of the Office of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), confirms initial reports that officials outside the Social Development and Human Security Ministry were also implicated in the alleged embezzlement of the ministry’s funds for the underprivileged. 
“Our key witness says the lobbying took place on February 27, just before our team arrived at the province to gather information directly from the people,” Korntip Daroj, acting secretary-general of the PACC, said yesterday. 
He said the witness revealed that the school director had told locals to sign a receipt as well as a certified copy of their national identification card claiming that their old documents were no longer valid for reimbursement. Locals were paid between Bt50 and Bt100 each as compensation when they met the school director.
“The locals were asked to lie and to insist to the PACC team that they had already received money from the centre,” Korntip revealed. 
The PACC has started investigating provincial protection centres for the destitute across the country after Mahasarakham University student Panida Yotpanya, who worked as a trainee at the Khon Kaen Protection Centre for the Destitute, blew the whistle about alleged irregularities there. 
The ongoing probe has now covered provincial centres that received budgets of more than Bt1-million for the poor. Officials said irregularities had already been detected in nearly 30 provinces, including Nakhon Phanom. The PACC team gathered information in Nakhon Phanom from Monday to Thursday.
The team found that many people had never received any financial assistance from the Nakhon Phanom Protection Centre for the Destitute but their names and documents were used for reimbursement. 
Many other people revealed to the team that they were paid Bt1,000 in the middle of last month, after investigations had already begun into alleged corruption in disbursement of the fund for the destitute.
According to the team, they were also told by local leaders that they should tell the PACC they had received money on the date appearing on the receipt.
“The team also reported that some locals were in fact paid just Bt50 to Bt100 each to sign the documents. But records at the centre show they received more than Bt5,000 from the centre,” Korntip said. 
He said the centre’s implicated officials would not be able to evade legal punishment, even if they arranged retroactive payments. 
“Their alleged actions constitute offences, which are punishable with minimum life imprisonment,” Korntip said. 
He vowed to investigate further to nail down those engaged in the corruption. 
“At present, several people are still reluctant to speak up about the alleged corruption because they are worried about conflicts with local officials,” Korntip said. 
In Trang province, two more volunteers for social development and human security came forward yesterday to lodge a complaint with police that their names were illegally used to claim welfare assistance of Bt2,000 while they had received just Bt500 as wage to conduct a survey on the poor.