Billionaire Thaksin Still Cashing In

[george]

STAGGERING WEALTH: Billionaire PM still cashing in

BANGKOK: The government yesterday sought to downplay growing concern over the ballooning wealth of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose business empire soared to a staggering Bt425.25 billion last year, or nearly 9 per cent of the Thai stock market’s total capitalisation.

The big jump in stock values – from Bt146 billion in 2002 – was a major topic at a recent closeddoor discussion among 30 leading academics, social workers and journalists in Chiang Mai.

At the session, speculation ran wild over just how rich the prime minister really is, with Bt1 trillion (US$25.58 billion) topping estimates, given other assets of his family.

The Chiang Mai forum’s gloomy predictions about Thailand’s future under Thaksin were revealed in yesterday’s edition of Matichon newspaper (see details on A5). The participants, many of them vocal critics of the government, decried his “populist” policy platform, media control, “abundant” cases of conflicts of interest, and growing cronyism.

“We can explain everything,” Government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said. “This is the most transparent prime minister. He has never hidden the fact that he’s a billionaire. When the national economy is good, everything else must be too.”

Jakrapob said that all companies in the Shinawatra empire are listed in the stock market and open to all kinds of scrutiny.

Pimuk Simaroj, deputy spokesman of the Thai Rak Thai Party, described the information as “nothing new”.

“I have talked to the party’s spokesman [suranand Vejjajiva who is currently on an overseas trip] and other party members and nobody is worried or concerned. That is old information which has been explained many times by the government,” Pimuk said.

The astounding, nearly threefold increase in value of the Shinawatra family’s businesses on the stock market was due solely to the upswing in the economy, he insisted.

“It’s not policy corruption, as alleged. When the waters are high, taller ships will naturally be more outstanding. Everything has proceeded according to the laws of the market capitalism,” Pimuk said.

The Chiang Mai forum is being hailed as the birth of an alliance of informal “ombudsmen” at a time when the parliamentary checks and balances have all but evaporated.

“It’s refreshing to see a group of small people try to tell the other side of the story to the public, although the government will as usual try to discredit them,” said Suriyasai Katasila, secretary general of the Campaign for Popular Democracy.

But Matichon’s reporting about the forum’s documents has worried some participants, who expressed fears that the government would take revenge on the most outspoken critics at the session.

Participants at the Chiang Mai meeting gave a strong warning about “populist” economic policies, saying they are not simply designed to gain popularity. The people’s undisciplined needs and desires have also been manipulated to create ever higher expectations.

At the forum, Thaksin was described as “the deal maker”, whose ultimate objective was to make deals that directly benefit his and his cronies’ family businesses.

The government scheme to allow villagers to have access to easy loans through conversion of their assets into capital is said to be encouraging greater indebtedness among villagers who lack entrepreneurial skills, and therefore, risk losing ownership of their farm land.

The participants also attacked Thaksin for having a “hidden agenda” of reaping gains for his business empire, as far as privatisation of state enterprises is concerned.

--The Nation 2004-01-20

[Martin]

There are parallels to this in British history.

When England was about at the stage of industrial development that Thailand is now, there were big capitalists getting elected as political leaders. And England was well-served by them.

For instance, Titus Salt was Bradford's pre-eminently sucessful mill-owner, and one of those who helped to start Bradford on its way to becoming 'the city with more Rolls Royces per capita than London'. Titus Salt became Mayor of Bradford and one of its MPs.

A ghastly lack of public hygeine, squalor, overloaded roads etc could be seen to be limiting the potential to develop further. Also the average age at death of labourers was only 37 years. Business men and professionals did better ---45 years. The electorate turned to men who had been successful at one thing (business) in the probably well-founded belief that they were more likely to be successful at steering the ship of state than would be the rabble rousers. These men drove forward the putting-right (or, at least, the amelioration) of the worst effects of the early rush to industrialisation.

Titus Salt is now seen by historians as "The Great Paternalist". I wonder if this may not well be the verdict of history on Thaksin Shinawatra.

(Incidentally, it is tactless to mention in British broadcasting circles that the first country to have digital tv available was Thailand, and that the UK was years behind!---but it is another parallel with Thaksin, as Titus Salt also made his fortune by daringly backing the latest thing in technology with what money he had made up to then).

[Martin]

P.S. I forgot to mention that there is a tiny, but nice, historical connection between Titus Salt and Thaksin Shinawatra.

The set-top boxes to convert the first Shinawatra satellite tv signals to Thais' television sets were designed by Pace, whose design offices are in Salt's Mill at Saltaire; and the first production runs were done at Saltaire in a unit that was the Pace Manufacturing-proving Facility. It was housed in what had been an enormous weaving shed set up by Salt.

I am a retired engineer, not a historian; but I know that is true, because I was the Training Officer who trained the electronics assemblers on the difference between these 'world's first' digital boxes and the analogue boxes they had been assembling up to then.

We had one lady, in her late fifties, who had worked as a school-leaver in that shed, on the old clapped-out Victorian looms, just before weaving finished there around 1955. She used to tell us horror stories about the nastiness of the foremen, and the awful working conditions. And how, in Saltaire, the old folk used to say how much things had gone from good to bad to worse after Salt died and the mill was taken over by other businessmen. For instance, Salt had had a good workers' canteen set up; but that had lapsed. Pace set up a good workers' canteen. That lady used to tell us how much better things were. "Things had been good with Titus Salt, then they were bad, but now they're good again" was her refrain.