KLONG DAN
Bt21 billion to be sought for Klong Dan
Janjira Pongrai
The Nation

Vatana

BANGKOK: -- Civil servants, politicians face claims over water treatment plant's huge cost

Some 14 politicians and civil servants - former and current - will be required to pay more than Bt21 billion in total compensation to the state over losses caused by the Klong Dan wastewater treatment plant, according to a Finance Ministry plan.

The former politicians include Vatana Asavahame, a former deputy interior minister, and the late former minister of science, technology and environment Yingpan Manasikarn.

Vatana is now on the run.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division on Political Office Holders sentenced him to 10 years in jail in 2008 for abuse of power and criminal coercion in connection with the Klong Dan scandal.

In 2009, a district court in Bangkok also delivered a three-year jail term to Vatana for fraud in the same project.

Vatana's son Chonsawat Asavahame is now the chair of the Samut Prakan Provincial Adminis-trative Organisation.

In Yingpan's case, the people who inherited his assets will likely have to pay the compensation if the Pollution Control Department (PCD) decides to act on the plan.

On April 18, the ministry's deputy permanent secretary Pongpanu Svetarundra sent a letter to PCD director general Wichien Jungrungruang telling him to demand compensation from the 14 political-office holders and civil servants who should be held responsible for the project's utter failure.

The PCD started the project in 1995 under a Bt23-billion budget. However, the project has not delivered any service to date due to abuse of authority and corruption.

The Finance Ministry expects Vatana to pay Bt5.22 billion in compensation, and Yingpan's heirs about Bt4.77 billion.

Three former high-ranking PCD executives will be asked to pay huge amounts of compensation too, according to the Finance Ministry plan.

For example, the ministry wants Prakit Kirawanich - a former PCD director general - to pay Bt4 billion.

Sirithan Pairoj-boriboon, a former PCD deputy director general, will be asked to pay at least Bt2.5 billion.

Some officials at the Lands Department and local administrative bodies will also be ordered to pay compensation.

Some land title deeds for the Klong Dan project were illegally issued and cover mangrove zones.

Wichien has to date refused to give an interview on the issue.

An informed source, however, revealed that Wichien had already acted on the ministry's plan.

Way to go. Bring the corrupt guys to court and after proven guilty and convicted chase them and bring them home. There's a start. There's one in Dubai too, I hear. Get an international arrest warrant. There'll be quite a few billions to reclaim from him.

Surely this must be an eye opener at the amount of corruption in Thai politics and government if they are deciding to pursue people for 5 billion baht in compensation what civil servant should be able to legally amass a fortune like that in a government role

Before any of these politicians or civil servants are accepted into positions they should be made to declare all their assets and families assets and should then be open to audit at any time during their career and upto 15 years after they leave office, at which time they must show how they came to acquire this wealth in terms of salary earned. if they can not prove where the extra money came from then it should be confiscated same as is done for drug dealers

Surely this must be an eye opener at the amount of corruption in Thai politics and government if they are deciding to pursue people for 5 billion baht in compensation what civil servant should be able to legally amass a fortune like that in a government role

Before any of these politicians or civil servants are accepted into positions they should be made to declare all their assets and families assets and should then be open to audit at any time during their career and upto 15 years after they leave office, at which time they must show how they came to acquire this wealth in terms of salary earned. if they can not prove where the extra money came from then it should be confiscated same as is done for drug dealers

They do all of that already but doesn't seem to affect the accumulation of more money.

_{These amounts are insignificant compared to the 800 billion baht missing from the rice pledging scheme were it is suspected that Thaksin - Red Leaders and High ranking PTP MP's and Civil Servants have all shared in the proceeds}

its not the stealing of the money..its how there are no checks to ensure they can do it...there is more than a couple of people involved to get this scam to work..maybe a chinese style punishment may help to stop these dogs.

Nice lip service; but how much of this money will they ever actually collect ? We will never know because smoke and mirrors is the name of the game followed my musical chairs and sweep it under the carpet.

Next !

The prosecutors allowed most of the perpetrators of this scam to escape by letting the statute of limitations lapse.

Never understood what is the purpose of a statute of limitations. The Northern Ireland police just questioned the evil Gerry Adams over a murder he ordered in 1972. No statute of limitations there.

How many of these "politicians" were Thaksin-affiliated?

....does anyone really think that just 'ASKING' them to pay will suffice.....???

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Way to go. Bring the corrupt guys to court and after proven guilty and convicted chase them and bring them home. There's a start. There's one in Dubai too, I hear. Get an international arrest warrant. There'll be quite a few billions to reclaim from him.

Just go's to show if you are not in the in crowd ,just what can happen

Nice lip service; but how much of this money will they ever actually collect ? We will never know because smoke and mirrors is the name of the game followed my musical chairs and sweep it under the carpet.

Next !

...exactly, amazing how they say they will be "asking" those involved to pay these huge amounts. Why "ask"...?

The prosecutors allowed most of the perpetrators of this scam to escape by letting the statute of limitations lapse.

Never understood what is the purpose of a statute of limitations. The Northern Ireland police just questioned the evil Gerry Adams over a murder he ordered in 1972. No statute of limitations there.

Suthep (i dont like him much even though im anti government) had one good idea removing the statue of limitation on corruption. The reds were of course against this. Probably because then their leaders can't steal enough to pay their supporters to vote for them and protest for them and they will loose their power.

_{These amounts are insignificant compared to the 800 billion baht missing from the rice pledging scheme were it is suspected that Thaksin - Red Leaders and High ranking PTP MP's and Civil Servants have all shared in the proceeds}

Jut another reason t hold onto power. I would think a number of them will also, eventually, be asked to repay back a lot of money. This is exactly why reforms are needed - checks and balances are needed for all civil servants (esp. police), and most certainly nearly all politicians have they haids deep in the cookie jar. They are there to serve themselves, not to serve the people.

that money is long gone in villa's, mercedeces and mia nois

_{These amounts are insignificant compared to the 800 billion baht missing from the rice pledging scheme were it is suspected that Thaksin - Red Leaders and High ranking PTP MP's and Civil Servants have all shared in the proceeds}

Jut another reason t hold onto power. I would think a number of them will also, eventually, be asked to repay back a lot of money. This is exactly why reforms are needed - checks and balances are needed for all civil servants (esp. police), and most certainly nearly all politicians have they haids deep in the cookie jar. They are there to serve themselves, not to serve the people.

Yes that is why the reds clinge to power all their corruption deeds will come to light.

Anyway just change the corruption laws make sure there is no statue of limitation on them.

These are extraordinarily large amounts of money that these Thai guys were able to skim. And if they actually got the dead man's heirs who would they pay the compensation to? The guy on the run will naturally be apprehended at the border like the petty thieves running a few hundred meth pills.

Way to go. Bring the corrupt guys to court and after proven guilty and convicted chase them and bring them home. There's a start. There's one in Dubai too, I hear. Get an international arrest warrant. There'll be quite a few billions to reclaim from him.

International arrest warrant on a politically motivated conviction?

Good luck with that. You are lucky if you get the UAE officials to roll around the floor laughing at Thailand. Most likely not even a response.

You think the Democrats wouldnt have tried that if they had even a 1% chance at succeeding internationally?

They know what the world thinks of them. A circus has higher credibility than politics in Thailand.

Way to go. Bring the corrupt guys to court and after proven guilty and convicted chase them and bring them home. There's a start. There's one in Dubai too, I hear. Get an international arrest warrant. There'll be quite a few billions to reclaim from him.

International arrest warrant on a politically motivated conviction?

Good luck with that. You are lucky if you get the UAE officials to roll around the floor laughing at Thailand. Most likely not even a response.

You think the Democrats wouldnt have tried that if they had even a 1% chance at succeeding internationally?

They know what the world thinks of them. A circus has higher credibility than politics in Thailand.

Nothing wrong with the conviction.. the facts dont lie and there are plenty more cases against him. That is why he stays away.

Vatana's son Chonsawat Asavahame is now the chair of the Samut Prakan Provincial Adminis-trative Organisation.

Another corrupt-to-the-eyeballs clan still managing to cling to power. If the authorities ever manage to get a satang out of them, I'll be very surprised.

Holy crap!

I thought the kickbacks in Thailand was 30% , not 100 %

Thailand in now officially the hub of kickbacks

i really can not understand how you ferangs can have any right to comment on the policies of this country, why do you not keep your comments to your own corupt and failed countries eg , britian and the united states, for god sake you do not run the world any more

i really can not understand how you ferangs can have any right to comment on the policies of this country, why do you not keep your comments to your own corupt and failed countries eg , britian and the united states, for god sake you do not run the world any more

Where is britian? Is it a small island in The Pacific?

What is a ferang? A type of biscuit?

i really can not understand how you ferangs can have any right to comment on the policies of this country, why do you not keep your comments to your own corupt and failed countries eg , britian and the united states, for god sake you do not run the world any more

Did you fail to notice? This is a forum where people (Farangs, Thais & others) can post comments - just like what you are doing.

I'm not from the US or UK and am not so arrogant to deny anyone their opinions. The mods are there to curtail OTT posts.

If all this upsets you, get off the forum.

i really can not understand how you ferangs can have any right to comment on the policies of this country, why do you not keep your comments to your own corupt and failed countries eg , britian and the united states, for god sake you do not run the world any more

This is a falang forum - nobody is forcing you to come here and read - if you don't like what we discuss then don't come back - there are many falangs live here - have businesses here - have families and children here - they have a vested interest in what goes on whether you like it or not

and don't forget you'd still be in the dark ages only for falangs and foreign investment - how many cars - motorbikes - electronics have Thai people designed and manufactured - zero - not one item I can think of is a product of Thailand simply because you don't have the ability to design it yourselves - ask yourself why - why is it that Japan - Malaysia - S.Korea - Singapore are all way in front of Thailand - Thailand is a cheap labour camp for it's neighbours to manufacture their goods - you are the hub or corruption and nothing more which is why you have not progressed - you kid yourselves into thinking you are the hub of SE Asia - quite frankly you are being fooled by your government while they stuff your money into their pockets

Your bridges - roads - buildings - power stations - Dams - cars - phones - cell networks - TV's - factories - aircraft - military equipment etc etc are all from falangs nothing was designed by you

and I'm not even going to get into tourism - if you had a brain on your heads you'd have been pumping at least 30% of the revenue from tourism back into improving the infrastructure for tourists instead of filling your greedy pockets

and the one industry that you actually owned yourselves - you destroyed it - agriculture

The truth hurts but sometimes it needs to be said

Not being a legal expert, I'm not to sure about it, but is finding the inheritors of a guilty party to be liable for his offenses

a usual thing under Thai law? I don't recall hearing about that many cases which included this, but definitely could have

missed it. Now there is this case, and not long ago there was the case of Samak's widow expected to pay back a huge

chunk of money.

The other thing I do understand is that if this applies for an inheritance, can it not be applicable also in a case where the

offender does a runner, but leaves behind a considerable part of his wealth, even if under family's name? Is this a legal issue?

Or more to do with whom you can touch?

This is all a dog and pony show. Nobody will ever pay a baht on this. The fox guarding the chicken coop comes to mind.

_{These amounts are insignificant compared to the 800 billion baht missing from the rice pledging scheme were it is suspected that Thaksin - Red Leaders and High ranking PTP MP's and Civil Servants have all shared in the proceeds}

Jut another reason t hold onto power. I would think a number of them will also, eventually, be asked to repay back a lot of money. This is exactly why reforms are needed - checks and balances are needed for all civil servants (esp. police), and most certainly nearly all politicians have they haids deep in the cookie jar. They are there to serve themselves, not to serve the people.

Yes that is why the reds clinge to power all their corruption deeds will come to light.

Anyway just change the corruption laws make sure there is no statue of limitation on them.

And a mandatory jail term of 1 year per million baht that is not returned with no parole.

How many of these "politicians" were Thaksin-affiliated?

Hmm.. illegal land deals and a certain political party, that sounds so familiar.* Obviously, the military coup was necessary because of the large-scale corruption during the “Thaksin regime” because what other government in Thai history would have such large scale corruption. Oh, wait, Vatana Asavahame was a Minister during the Democrat Party led government of 1997-2000, not during Thaksin’s government.

Vatana is also involved in a 20+ billion baht corruption case surrounding the Klong Dan wastewater treatment project – a legal history of the Klong Dan case is here. Just after the coup, the Bangkok Post on 27 September 2006 reports:

How many of these "politicians" were Thaksin-affiliated?

Hmm.. illegal land deals and a certain political party, that sounds so familiar.* Obviously, the military coup was necessary because of the large-scale corruption during the “Thaksin regime” because what other government in Thai history would have such large scale corruption. Oh, wait, Vatana Asavahame was a Minister during the Democrat Party led government of 1997-2000, not during Thaksin’s government.

Vatana is also involved in a 20+ billion baht corruption case surrounding the Klong Dan wastewater treatment project – a legal history of the Klong Dan case is here. Just after the coup, the Bangkok Post on 27 September 2006 reports:

so what things have moved on to the last 10 tears which is now very much in focus - especially the last 3 years, that is what we are currently dealing with, you gota love it - Thaksin lost face and had to do a runner - he then orchestrated an absolute win at any cost election using some of the most outrageous populist policies - vote buying and the rest

He then proceeded to rape the country dry of hundreds of billions of baht all orchestrated through his sister and tried to push all sorts of bills through the house again by any means

It's just a pity all those people in the North can't see it for what it really is - the biggest scam in Thai history - Thaksin will certainly be remembered for masterminding the greatest theft in SE Asia

I wish all the people in the North would get a Backbone and stand up to this evil man

I have Thai friends that know exactly what is going on but are powerless except through the PDRC - and that is the only path that can make a difference but maybe not ideal - that remains to be seen

Thumbs up for social media as the word is slowly but surely getting through