Police stall investigation on Army park corruption, saying no case filed

The Thai police have announced that they have not yet proceeded to investigate allegations of graft in the construction of the military’s royal theme park, saying that no one has so far filed a case.

On Wednesday, 11 November 2015, Pol Maj Gen Piyapan Pingmuang, Deputy Spokesperson of the Royal Thai Police, told the media that the police have not yet summoned Gen Udomdej Sitabutr, the current Deputy Defence Minister and former Army Commander-in-chief, for interrogation on corruption in the construction of Rajabhakti Park.

The Police Deputy Spokesperson said that no one has filed a formal complaint about the case so far and the police cannot proceed to investigate it by themselves, before adding that the Anti-Money Laundering Office has already established a committee to handle the case.

The construction of Rajabhakti Park, a royal theme park featuring gigantic monuments of seven prominent past monarchs in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province of central Thailand, was constructed by the Thai military. The project, costing about a billion baht (about 28 million USD) was overseen by Gen Udomdej.

The Deputy Defence Minister earlier this week admitted that the project was rife with corruption as many media outlets reported.

According to Khaosod English, he said that such corruption is common in every sector, adding the individuals hired by the Army took ‘commissions’ of about 10 per cent from the budget for the park.

When further pressed by the media, Gen Udomdej said that he is uncertain whether the money was returned to the Army, but said that the damage is already mended because the ‘middleman’ on the project had already returned the commission as a ‘donation’.

“I don’t really know the details. But I can certainly explain all of it. It’s about work by different committees. The financial work was handled by the treasury, and the head of army treasury department can certainly explain it,” Khaosod English quoted the Deputy Defence Minister as saying.

According to the Bangkok Post, the businessman believed to have demanded millions of baht of commission fees from the royal park construction reportedly fled the country to Hong Kong last Friday.

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