ACT speaks righteously

Hats off to the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand (ACT) for its combination requestrebuke over the country’s two biggest cases of graft. This group quite properly took the National Anti-Corruption Commission to task. The NACC has fulfilled neither its duty to the constitution nor its obligation to the public. It has convinced everyone it is dragging its collective feet on the cases, on purpose. ACT is quite properly calling the NACC to act more responsibly.

The two high-profile alleged corruption cases involve the current first Deputy Prime Minister, Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, and the former police chief, Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang. Gen Prawit has been officially “under investigation” over a collection of high-priced wristwatches and jewellery seen in his possession, and worth well over US$1 million. Pol Gen Somyot is directly tied up in a probe into a nasty case that involves child sex, sex trafficking and a loan of 300 million baht.

The two cases aren’t legally related. ACT linked them because they have other commonality. Both involve public figures of high visibility. Both spent their careers in public service, yet emerged as extremely well off. As ACT’s every sentence of its Sunday criticism implied, it seems to the public as if the cases of Gen Prawit and Pol Gen Somyot involve figures too big to criticise, too important to indict.

The truth is as ACT’s now viral statement so strongly states. The NACC has given three progressively longer deadlines to report on Gen Prawit’s alleged corruption case, and has delivered nothing. It promised from the start of the case last December to keep the public informed, and has repeatedly reneged. It has kept the case of Pol Gen Somyot even quieter since it began in May.

The case involving Pol Gen Somyot — former police chief, currently head of the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) — is as shocking as it is murky. It centres on the owners and operations of the Victoria’s Secret massage parlour. That business was busted by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) on numerous legal grounds. Amongst the probes into multiple types of illegal abuse of women and children, Pol Gen Somyot’s name popped up. Seized papers claimed he had borrowed 300 million baht from the massage parlour’s owner. Pol Gen Somyot told the media that was true.

This case involves powerful figures from the shady crime scene. The NACC began the main investigation of Pol Gen Somyot’s involvement with the owner, alleged human trafficker Kampol Wirathepsuporn. The DSI has stated its detectives believe Mr Kampol used friends and others to launder his huge profits from his businesses. A properly conducted and transparent investigation by the NACC will report if Pol Gen Somyot was involved in such illegal doings.

So far, the NACC has reported neither a conclusion nor the case’s progress. And the same is unfortunately true concerning the case of Gen Prawit. The public is vitally aware of 26 high-priced watches seen on the wrist of the first deputy prime minister. The public, and for certain all members and support of the NACC, also know Gen Prawit’s position in the government and in the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). More to the point, everyone also knows his position as mentor of the prime minister, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha.

The NACC has not worried about botching cases and failure to meet its responsibility in the past. The anti-graft group allowed corruption allegations slide when they were filed against the prime minister’s brother, Gen Preecha. The public was cynical and yet forgiving when the NACC refused its obligation to investigate the suspect process of constructing Rajabhakti Park, site of the seven giant statues of great kings.

The pointed charges by ACT show that a strong and influential group is unwilling to accept more such conduct by the NACC. It notes correctly that the NACC is the chief body entrusted with guaranteeing the rule of law in the country. More failures in these two high-profile cases will not be well tolerated by the nation.