News from Thailand – February 2, 2013

Bangkok Post boasts on the front page about the release of Ratree Pipattanapaiboon, who was imprisoned for 2 years and a month in Prey Sar Prison in Phnom Penh. She has benefited from a pardon on the occasion of the death and cremation of Cambodia's former monarch Norodom Sihanouk.

After her release, Ratree stated that she couldn't really smile yet because "her boyfriend" is still in prison, referring to Veera Somkomenkid, coordinator of the Thai Patriots Network, for whom she worked as a secretary.

Both were apprehended, along with five other Thais, in December 2010 at the border with Cambodia – according to Cambodia on Cambodian territory – by Cambodian soldiers. Those five received a suspended prison sentence and were released after a month, Veera and Ratree received a prison sentence of 8 and 6 years respectively for illegal entry into Cambodian territory and espionage.

Veera is known as a staunch opponent of Cambodia in the Preah Vihear case, the temple that was awarded to Cambodia by the International Court of Justice in 1962 and is now such a hassle because of the surrounding area. In 2009, he led XNUMX yellow shirts to the Preah Vihear temple and gave a wild speech demanding the return of what he called Thai territory.

In August 2010, he was arrested in Cambodia after he and two others crossed the border elsewhere. The government intervened, they were released and Veera signed an agreement that he would never again enter Cambodia illegally. So he did, although the seven at the time claimed that they had been arrested on Thai territory.

– Minister Varathep Rattanakorn can squeeze his hands. The Constitutional Court has ruled by six to three votes that he is eligible for a ministerial post. But he owes that to a legal trick, because he was sentenced three years ago to a prison sentence of 2 years, but that sentence was suspended.

Varathep was convicted of a misdemeanor offense as deputy finance minister in the Thaksin cabinet with the introduction of the two- and three-digit lottery. If he had been imprisoned, he would not have been eligible for a ministerial post under Article 174 of the Constitution. The Court had been asked by 24 senators to consider its status. Varathep is a minister in the office of the prime minister, a position that we do not know in the Netherlands.

According to Varathep, the Court's ruling also clears him of the charge in the lottery case, but that seems wishful thinking to me. Thirty members of the Thaksin cabinet and 17 board members of the Government Lottery Office, including former Prime Minister Thaksin, have been charged in that case. It is one of the many cases that are still pending against Thaksin. He was only sentenced in absentia in 2008 to 2 years in prison for abuse of power in another case.

– Somchai Khunploem (75), convicted of murder and corruption, started his prison sentence for corruption yesterday, for which he has been on the run for almost 7 years. Somchai was wheeled into the Criminal Court in a wheelchair for a procedure I am not familiar with; he had to admit that he was the defendant in that case. A month earlier, before the verdict in May 2006, he had fled. A similar session must also follow for the murder case, which resulted in a 25-year prison sentence in March last year. Only then will the counter start running.

Somchai, then mayor of Saen Suk (Chon Buri), was detained on Wednesday after visiting Bangkok's Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital. He shot dead a political rival at a wedding reception in March 2003 and pleaded guilty in 1992 to selling land in a forest reserve for use as a rubbish dump.

– U-tapao Naval Air Base in Rayong, which currently handles 600.000 civilian passengers per year, should become an important gateway to the eastern provinces for tourists in the future. The Department of Civil Aviation has been commissioned to conduct a feasibility study into the construction of a second runway. Work is already underway to expand the airport, increasing its capacity to 3 million passengers per year.

According to Transport Minister Chadchat Sittipunt, the expansion will help ease congestion on Suvarnabhumi. The minister fears that the planned construction of a third runway at Suvarnabhumi will be delayed by protests from local residents.

– Employment agencies may not charge more than 40.000 baht per person in agency fees when they employ Thais in Taiwan. The Minister of Employment threatens to deprive agencies that flout this rule of their permits. The amount is made up of administration costs, travel costs and the costs of a medical check-up. In recent years, agencies have requested amounts of up to 120.000 baht.

Yesterday, the minister and agencies signed an agreement on the maximum brokerage fees. Taiwan is a popular job market; approximately 70.000 Thais work there.

– The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD, red shirts) does not care which of the three proposals for amnesty for political offenders is supported by the government, provided it does justice to the UDD principles. So says Nattawut Saikuar, red shirt leader and deputy commerce minister.

The three proposals were submitted by the UDD, the independent National Rule of Law Commission, and Nitirat, a group of lawyers from Thammasat University. All three advocate the release of political prisoners and the dropping of charges, which date from the period 2006 to 2010. They differ procedurally. The UDD wants to arrange things through a so-called executive decree (cabinet decision), because that goes faster; the committee through parliamentary consideration of a bill and Nitirat through a constitutional amendment.

Prime Minister Yingluck previously promised to ask the Council of State for advice. The UDD accepts a decision of this venerable college, says Nattawut.

The Democrats wonder why the UDD suddenly wants to make such a rush. Could this be related to a libel suit filed by opposition leader Abhisit (Democrats) against red shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan? And the sentencing of a former police officer to 10 years in prison for bringing grenades to redshirts in April 2010?

– The fourteen branches of the Roman Catholic Assumption College and the affiliated Catholic schools charge 750.000 baht for the registration of a Prathom-1 student (first class primary school): 450.000 baht school fees and 300.000 baht donation. Parents have asked the Department of Special Investigation to dig into the books of the St Gabriel Foundation, the trustee of the schools.

The parents want to know where those donations of a total of 2 billion baht came from, whether they were obtained lawfully and what they were used for. A lot of pae jia (tea money) would not be found in the books, says Wiwatchai Kulmart, advisor to a network of parents and students for education reform. According to him, many priests with the position of director are 'unusually wealthy'.

The planned merger of the primary and secondary schools of Assumption College, against which teachers and (former) students previously protested, has been shelved for the time being.

– Unrest at the Bangkok Bank. The employees previously dressed in black in protest against the lack of a salary increase and bonus. That annual bonus has been frozen for four years. The bank has somewhat accommodated the union, but the union still finds the offer too meager. She wants higher wages and a four-month bonus. Last year, the bank made a net profit of 20,3 billion baht.

– The traffic police of Bangkok will set up checkpoints again during the day. Earlier, the police stopped them because they caused traffic jams. But the removal has had no effect on traffic flow, said Worasak Nopsithiporn, chief of the traffic police. And to make matters worse, the number of traffic violations has increased.

– The lifeless body of a police officer was found in his house in Muang (Pathum Thani). He had a bullet wound in his head. His wife alerted the police after hearing a gunshot at 4 am. She found her husband with a gun in his right hand. The officer had stayed up because his right leg hurt a lot. He suffered from liver disease.

– Thirty students and the driver of a school bus were injured yesterday morning when the bus crashed into a tree in Mae Taeng (Chiang Mai). According to the driver, the brakes failed as the bus drove down a mountain. Thanks to the collision with a tree, the bus did not fall into a ravine.

Political news

– Pheu Thai candidate Pongsapat Pongcharoen for the governorship of Bangkok has been reprimanded in covert terms by Prime Minister Yingluck: he must make more realistic election promises. Pongsapat has launched several ideas, which are, to say the least, unrealistic, such as free transport by non-air-conditioned bus and the ferries on the Saen Saep Canal and increasing the monthly allowance for the elderly to 1.200 baht per person, all matters that Bangkok has no say in. has left.

Prime Minister's Secretary General Suranand Vejjajiva says Pongsapat should entice voters with other innovative and useful policy proposals that the municipality can implement. And he should emphasize his advantage in being able to work smoothly with the government.

Yesterday Prime Minister Yingluck met with ministers and party bosses about the election strategy in Bangkok. The prime minister has ordered her party members to go door to door to bring the Pheu Thai policy directly to the voters.

Pongsapat denied yesterday that Yingluck is dissatisfied with his election campaign. “I still get moral support from her and she's constantly checking on progress. But I am willing to adapt my policy to the needs of the people of Bangkok.' Next Wednesday he will explain how he wants to solve the traffic problems.

Rival Sukhumbhand Paribatra (Democrats) visited Thung Khru yesterday. If reelected, he promised to install 27.000 new surveillance cameras and link the council's CCTV network to that of 200.000 private cameras.

Meanwhile, the number of election candidates has shrunk by one to 24 because the Bangkok Electoral Council has disqualified a candidate.

– Disabled people are entering a golden age in Bangkok, because candidates for the post of governor promised yesterday during a debate at Silpakorn University to turn Bangkok into a 'friendly city' for wheelchair users.

Sukhumband (Democrats) promised 350 ramps (added every year), elevators at every subway station and 100 specially adapted metered taxis. Pongsapat (Pheu Thai) wants to set up a special municipal department for disability policy. He admits that the current facilities are 'not up to scratch'. Kosit Suvinijit (independent candidate) supports the idea of ​​a special department. He promised to create more jobs for the disabled.

Economic news

– Corruption will increase this year, expect 48 percent of respondents in a poll by the university of the Thai Chamber of Commerce. The UTCC surveyed 2.400 individuals working in business and government services. She attributes the increase [or the respondents do; that is unclear] to the mortgage system for rice, the budget of 350 billion baht for water management projects and the 2,2 trillion baht that the government wants to spend on infrastructure projects over the next seven years.

In December, the Corruption Situation Index offered a bright spot, as it stood at 3,9 points against 3,5 in June. But the score remains poor on a scale of 1 to 10. [Which apparently runs from insufficient to sufficient]

The poll shows that tea money (bribes) made up 1 to 1 percent of government spending during the past fiscal year (October 30-October 35), which amounts to 330 billion baht in monetary terms.

The UTCC poll has been conducted since 1999. At that time, tea money averaged 10 percent of a budget.

The Bureau of Policy and Strategy of the National Anti-Corruption Commission received 7.955 corruption complaints last year. [The message doesn't say what happened to those complaints] This year, the agency expects to get 10.000.

On the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, Thailand has dropped from 80th to 88th place. The list has 176 country names and is compiled by Transparency International in Berlin. Thailand is on the same level (or actually depth) as Malawi, Morocco, Suriname, Swaziland and Zambia. Denmark, Finland and New Zealand are the least corrupt countries.

– Another conflict looms over the policy rate. Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong and his pallbearer, the chairman of the Bank of Thailand, are pushing for interest rate cuts; Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul is not in favor of that.

On Thursday, he explained again that the central bank's monetary policy is aimed at long-term stability and does not focus on the short term or on a single objective.

The level of the policy rate is set by the bank's Monetary Policy Committee, which consists of seven members, four of whom are outsiders. The committee will meet on February 20. The rate is currently 2,75 percent.

The whole issue revolves around whether lowering interest rates can halt the rise in the baht. For backgrounds see Economic news of Friday.

– The Thai Chamber of Commerce warns ships that sail along the Eastern Seaboard for robberies. Robberies have increased in recent years, especially of commodities such as beans and sugar because they are easy to sell.

Precautions have already been taken on some ships by strengthening surveillance, according to Vice-President Pornsil Patcharintanakul. Importers and exporters have so far been compensated for the damage, but if the situation deteriorates, insurance premiums must be increased. "I don't want Thailand to look like Somalia. The Navy needs to patrol more often," says Pornsil.

The Thai National Shippers' Council, which represents three thousand exporters and shippers, will soon discuss measures with its members.

– The problem of toxic waste must be tackled more strictly, says the Strategic Committee for Reconstruction and Development. The committee proposes a ban on dumping the waste and wants the penalty for violations to be increased. The maximum penalty is currently 2 years in prison and a fine of 200.000 baht. According to the Federation of Thai Industries, this light sentence results in hazardous waste being dumped in public areas.

Thailand generates 27 million tons of waste per year, of which 23,4 million tons is recyclable and 3,6 million tons is hazardous waste, mainly from the automotive industry. Households also produce an additional 1 million tons of electronic waste, of which 200.000 tons are hazardous. There are ninety centers for the processing of electronic waste with an annual capacity of 6.000 tons.

– Mercedes-Benz (Thailand) will expand its production capacity at the Samut Prakan plant by 2.000 to 3.000. At present, 16.000 cars roll off the assembly line. Five dealers and service centers will also be added. Those investments cost 200 million baht and 1 billion baht respectively. The company expects demand for premium [?] cars in the mid- and high-income segment to increase as the economy expands 5 percent this year.

Mercedes currently has 29 dealers and service centers. At the end of April, another will be added in Nakhon Ratchasima, followed by Hua Hin and then Greater Bangkok. Last year sales increased by 34 percent to 6.274 cars. The company attributes the increase to the introduction of new models that are popular in the market, such as the new M-Class, B-Class, SL-Class, CLS Shooting Brake, CLS and A-Class.

www.dickvanderlugt.nl – Source: Bangkok Post