The truth about Rajabhakti must be made known

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon told the media last week he would no longer talk to them about the Rajabhakti Park scandal until a new team investigating alleged irregularities has come up with its findings.

After being mobbed by reporters every time he stepped out the door and being bombarded with similar questions on the same issue for the whole week, it is understandable why Gen Prawit feels fed up with the issue.

But it’s not only Gen Prawit who feels that way. Prime Minister Prayut Chanocha, Deputy Defence Minister Udomdej Sitabutr and army commander-in-chief Gen Theerachai Nakvanich also want the case to be closed quickly, as it is politically damaging.

But the dark murmurings won’t go away as easily as they would wish. First of all, reporters are not going to stop their hounding of the ministers because there are a number of related issues that have yet to be cleared up.

The internal probe ordered by the army chief, which insisted the park project was transparent and free from corruption, skipped the kickback question.

Also, the army chief’s reluctance to disclose details of that investigation as if it were a military secret, and his implicit barring of the National AntiCorruption Commission and the Office of the Auditor-General from launching probes into the scandal have raised more eyebrows.

Deputy Defence Minister Udomdej, who is the chairman of the Rajabhakti Park Foundation, called a press conference for Nov 24, but it was abruptly cancelled without any explanation.

After the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Prayut pleaded with the media not to over-play the park issue, and asked them not to be used as a “tool” for “somebody else”.

He insisted he was not trying to protect any particular individual and did not intend to sweep the case under the carpet.

An earlier statement by the prime minister that the government had nothing to do with the project as it was totally funded by public donations has been refuted by a new piece of information from the chairman of the State Audit Commission, Chaisit Trachutham, who disclosed that 63.57 million baht of taxpayers’ money was allocated to the project from the state’s coffers.

Public donations for the project amount to about 1 billion baht.

Of this, 120 million baht is still left in the bank account of the Rajabhakti Park Foundation and another 53 million baht is in an army bank account.

That means about 830 million baht has been spent on the project’s construction, the casting of the seven giant statues of former Thai kings, landscaping and other miscellaneous expenses.

The question is, why can’t the army disclose details of the spending to the public who are the major donors? Don’t those donors have the right to know how their money has been spent?

Kaewsan Atibodhi, a former senator and a former member of the defunct Assets Scrutiny Committee set up after the 2006 coup, said it was a pity the army did not thoroughly investigate the case.

He said the army could not treat the case as “off-limits” to outsiders because the funding of the project came from public donations.

Meanwhile, a bombshell was dropped when the military court issued a warrant for the arrest of Maj-Gen Suchart Prommai, former commander of the 11th Regiment and a key player in the Rajabhakti Foundation.

Prior to the arrest warrant for Maj Gen Suchart being issued, Col Kachachart Boondee, who is linked to the park project and the “Mor Yong” gang (led by the late fortune teller Suriyan Sucharitpolwong) and is charged with lese majeste, had been stripped of his rank and is now on the run. Maj Gen Suchart and Mr Kachachart were close friends and both are former aides to deputy defence minister and former army chief Gen Udomdej.

Putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together, one may get a picture of an unholy mess right in front of our eyes.

This explains why the case will not go away easily. In fact, it may turn even more messy before it is cleared up — if it’s ever cleared up at all.

Putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together, one may get a picture of an unholy mess.