The GT200 debacle: gullibility or criminality?

A Bangkok court has convicted Thai firm Ava Satcom Co and its top executive of fraud for supplying GT200 devices to the Royal Aide-de-Camp Department. The company chief was jailed for nine years and fined Bt18,000, but an appeal is planned on the grounds that the GT200s were imported on the orders of the military. The handheld British-manufactured gadgets, which were supposed to detect all sorts of contraband, from bombs to drugs, were sold to various security units. They did no such thing, although senior figures in the military were 
prepared to swear to their efficacy.
The manufacturers were convicted of fraud in 2013 after the British government, considering purchasing the devices for its troops, had the instruments scrutinised. Thailand was among several countries whose governments were duped into investing heavily in the GT200, chiefly to thwart insurgency bombings in the South. Even when the gadget was shown to be nothing more that meaningless wires and an antenna attached to a plastic casing, the Thai Army defended the procurement. By insisting the GT200 was effective, it was putting people’s lives in danger, along with its own global reputation.
The denials went on until the controversy faded away, at which point the military quietly scrubbed the device from its inventory supply list. And now, with the conviction of Ava Satcom, Defence Ministry spokesman Lt-General Kongcheep Tantravanich has announced that the military is mulling a lawsuit of its own and might seek compensation. Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan, the Defence Minister, continues to maintain that the armed forces did nothing wrong and he dismissed any suggestion of a scandal. “At the time [2004], our testing teams said the devices worked,” Prawit told reporters.
They apparently seemed to work like magic, because various state agencies were ready to pay between Bt900,000 and Bt1.2 million per unit, spending as much as Bt900 million in all. The Army bought 757, the Royal Thai Police 50, the Central Institute of Forensic Science and Customs Department six each and the Air Force four. They could have instead bought a device that’s designed to find golf balls lost in the rough, because that’s what the GT200 was based on, and those only cost about Bt600 each. They don’t sniff out bombs or prevent limbs from being blown off, but they’d come in handy on the Army golf links.
After all these years of defending the procurement, it is a far too late now for Prawit to try and cast the armed forces as the victim in this matter. Nor would a public apology suffice, should he ever deign to offer one. Heads ought to roll and the Attorney General should consider a criminal suit against whoever authorised the purchase. Such sloppiness on the military’s part cannot be allowed to pass without punishment. The debacle also throws further doubt on other, much more expensive procurements like tanks, submarines and jet fighters. Can we trust the generals when it comes to due diligence?
There of course needs to be a degree of secrecy in the purchase and sale of military hardware. National security cannot be compromised. But there also needs to be accountability in the event that the sale or purchase ends badly. This is why more-developed countries make civilian oversight of the military a matter of law. Unfortunately for Thailand, the military is always enmeshed in politics, and at the moment inextricably so.