Crushing the red shirts at Rajaprasong had one immediate benefit for the army. It allowed its brass to get their snouts back in the trough over the airship it was buying from a little-known and recently-formed US penny stock company that only had work with the Thai army. Right after it bloodily crushed the red shirts, General Anupong Paojinda allowed the purchase to go forward.
PPT has posted on this corrupt deal before, here, here and here.
Now the Bangkok Post reports that the army’s 350 million baht airship has been deflated, not just by corruption, but because of “serious leaks.” And this just a month after official delivery. PPT would guess that the brass don’t give a fig, because they have their commissions already. However, they must be concerned that this blatently stupid but lucrative purchase keeps getting lampooned and harpooned in the press.
The Post reports that three officers who sat on the “inspection panel which approved the delivery of the aircraft” are now saying that the “the US-made Aeros 40D aircraft will not be able to take to the air again…”. So that would be at a cost of just 22.5 million a day. Chicken feed for the powerful elite in the military. Actually more, because the report says: “It’s been left deflated in a hangar at the Bo Thong airstrip in Pattani’s Nong Chik district for some time…”. Then throw in the costs of repeatedly filling a leaking ship with expensive helium.
The whole shebang is a joke and Abhisit Vejjajiva sits on his hands while the military wastes public funds because he is their prime minister and owes his position to them. He’s had plenty of chances to do something on this one case, but the fawning premier can’t argue with his bosses on their access to corruption.
