Regierung äussert sich nicht zu 21 Millionen Baht Reise

Vier Monate nach Prawits Vergnügungsreise nach Hawaii
kommt jetzt ausgerechnet in Thaksins khaosod eine
offizielle Passagierliste raus:

Two names stand out from a list made public Monday of who joined a deputy junta leader’s entourage on a taxpayer-funded trip to Hawaii last year.

Nearly four months after Khaosod English requested records of the trip, the Defense Ministry on Monday released a list of who accompanied Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan to Honolulu to attend an informal meeting with U.S. military officials, a trip which sparked controversy when word got out that 20.9 million baht was spent on airfare alone.

While the list of 40 mostly contains the names of army officers and one American military officer, two little-known civilians listed as “others” were also aboard the chartered flight with Prawit, a former army commander turned junta leader who also serves as Minister of Defense.
One was a woman named Suprang-orn Ratithanyakornkul, who was listed as an adviser to an assistant of Prawit. The only apparent reference online to Suprang-orn’s credentials appears on the website of Perfect Angels, a training school for would-be flight attendants.

There she is identified with a smiling photo as No. 32 and listed as having completed training in February 2014. The school claims to have successfully produced 3,889 aviation “angels” in eight years.

The training school failed to respond to inquiries as of press time Tuesday.

Another to fly as an adviser to the assistant of the Defense Minister was Pornperm Srisawat. In a news release on the website of CP Group, the kingdom’s largest corporate conglomerate, Pornperm is identified as one of the company president’s liaison to the government.

Also die hätte ich auch mitgenommen. Dafür hätte ich dann die 40 Anderen
zu Hause gelassen….und natürlich Fettsack Prawit!

<a href="http://www.schoenes-thailand.at">STIN</a>: jetzt hoffen wir erstmal, das es der König schafft. Prayuth hat alle Termine unterbrochen und ist zum Sirajai-KH
geeilt. Kronprinz ist auch schon eingeflogen und hat nachmittag Termin mit Prayuth.

Viele Leute eilen zum KH, es scheint ernst zu sein. Kann man nur hoffen, das alles schon geregelt ist und nicht
das Militär sich splittet – dann würde mein Aufenthalt hier vermutlich länger dauern.

Ich hoffe nicht.

Long live the King!

Fuer 19Uhr sind alle aufgefordert am TV zu sitzen.
Ich glaube, es werden beruhigende Nachrichten sein, um den Geruechten ein Ende zu machen!
Long live the King!

berndgrimm: Vielleicht war der ja auch auf Hawaii?

DAS waere es jetzt!

Kommentar des früheren Chefredakteurs der BP:

Veera Prateepchaikul is a former editor, Bangkok Post.
The plots are similar. In March, Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya, Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas and Prayong Priyajit, secretary-general of the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission appeared at a press conference to jointly declare the Rajabhakti Park project in Hua Hin was above-board and cleared of any corruption.

On Oct 7, government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd, Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantravanich and Thai Airways International president Charamporn Jotikasthira fronted a press conference to try to convince the media that the use of a THAI chartered flight to Hawaii by a 38-member delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon to attend the second Asean-US defence ministers‘ meeting on Sept 29-Oct 2 was free of irregularities.

On the same day, Auditor-General Pisit separately held a press conference to declare the controversial VIP trip to Hawaii and the cost — 20.9 million baht — as clean as white linen. He also said serving caviar on the chartered flight was normal.

Are Thais who are following the two cases convinced that everything is as sweet as these government people suggest?

I only wish that one of the well-known pollsters — Nida Poll or Suan Dusit Poll — would conduct an opinion survey of how the people feel about the VIP trip to Hawaii and all of the statements defending it, especially that by the OAG which is supposed to be independent, reliable and credible.

Personally, my faith in the OAG has almost vanished since Mr Pisit’s predecessor, Jaruvan Maintaka, was sentenced to two years imprisonment last November by the Criminal Court after being found guilty of misusing OAG funds to organise a kathin ceremony in Nan in 2003 under the excuse of holding a seminar.

She was also accused for appointing her son as her secretary at the OAG, a move widely criticised as nepotism and inappropriate. But Auditor-General Pisit later decided there was no rule to forbid such an act.

Despite the OAG’s stamp of approval for the Rajabhakti Park project, doubt still lingers on the question of the 20 million baht in donations to the Rajabhakti Foundation.

Rumours circulating suggest a well-known amulet trader had demanded kickbacks from foundries in exchange for contracts to cast the park’s seven giant statues of former kings.

But when this was leaked to the media and became headline news, it was quickly buried.

But out of the blue emerged the issue of foundry donations to the foundation. Why did the foundries make the donations? Were the donations actually the alleged kickbacks? No clear-cut answer from the OAG.

Neither the OAG nor the army was willing to disclose the actual amount of public donations received for the project, claiming the information was confidential.

In a similar vein, the OAG and the Defence Ministry are reluctant to make public the list of the 38-member entourage in the VIP trip to Hawaii, citing confidentiality, as if the delegates were on a secret mission and the disclosure of their identities might put their lives at risk.

Critics have not accused Gen Prawit or any of the delegates of corruption. Hence, the OAG’s probe and its subsequent dismissal of any wrongdoing appear to have missed the mark.

The issue at stake, as a matter of fact, is whether the use of 20.9 million baht for the Hawaii meeting was worth the cost to ensure the comfort of the delegates, so they need not bother with the hassle of making connecting flights.

Did the other Asean defence ministers do the same as the Thai defence minister — use a chartered wide-bodied Boeing 737-400 which can carry up to 400 passengers? Or was it just the Thai delegation?

The government may consider the case closed as all concerned parties have made their clarifications. But doubt will linger and public trust in the persons involved and the government will suffer.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha vented frustration against the media for its inquisitiveness and its search for truth, which amounts to shooting the messenger.

It is not the media which is at fault. It is someone inside the government that is the real problem.

Wohlgemerkt, all diese Fälle sind Peanuts verglichen mit dem was zu den
Regierungszeiten von Thaksins Marionetten und seines Nummerngirls ablief.

Nur, darum geht es garnicht!

Prayuth ist als Saubermann angetreten und wollte Thailand von vielen
gesellschaftlichen Missbildungen befreien.
Seine Reden waren und sind für einen Thai ungewöhnlich direkt und klar!
Aber seine Taten sind leider weder direkt noch klar sondern meist
garnicht vorhanden.
Seitdem er im Wahlkampfmodus ist und uns als gewählter Diktator
noch viele weitere Jahre unterhalten möchte macht er garnix mehr
ausser ein paar PR Gags und natürlich Ausländerjagd.

Die obigen Fälle und auch der Fall mit seinem depperten Bruder
und dessen Familie nehmen Prayuth jegliche Glaubwürdigkeit.
Aber am schlimmsten ist seine totale Untätigkeit bei der Polizei
und der Staatsanwaltschaft (OAG)!

Er will Thailand in 20 Jahren „korruptionsfrei“ machen!

Dies wäre durchaus möglich….aber nicht so!

THAI AIRWAYS International will take two months to disclose its finalised bill for Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan’s controversial chartered flight to Hawaii last week, its top executive told a press conference yesterday.

5555! Alles klar!