Protecting the corrupt

The Dictator, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, the world’s most multi-talented prime minister, junta head and would-be king, has allowed his political hubris to cloud his magnificence. In the face of the following data, The Dictator has demanded “fairness” for these officials who appear “unusually wealthy.”

One of our readers put together a spreadsheet from the data provided officially of the assets for the military and police members of the puppet National Legislative Assembly. Click on the images to get a larger version.

With so much data and put together quickly, the reader warns there might errors, but the pattern is clear.

Having served as one of the air force’s top brass, you will only have accumulated an average declared assets of about 57 million baht.

If a general in the armed forces, your assets average about 78 million baht.

If you managed to become an admiral in the navy, you sail away with average assets of about 109 million baht.

The top money secretes to the top police. We acknowledge that there are a couple of low ranks listed, who probably report a rank having departed the cops early, but even so, the average for the top brass in the police is a whopping 258 million baht.

We notice that the new top cop, the reprehensible and seemingly incompetent Somyos Pumpanmuang has amassed declared assets of almost 375 million baht. We have previously noted this cop’s connections with shady business groups that use men-in-black to harass villagers. Maybe that’s how he acquired so much land.

PPT would have thought that the release of such data would be both profoundly disturbing and cause for investigation. We also thought that The Dictator might have wanted to shut up on this, being both embarrassed by the wealth of men who have had relatively low incomes and shame-faced about his younger brother’s declared assets of almost 80 million baht.

General Preecha’s wealth was tricky to calculate, and was revised up to about 90 million baht by Bangkok Pundit in a post about errors in calculation. Maybe his younger brother, who is declared to be located in the Crown Property Bureau, should have assisted him with a 50 baht calculator.

At the Bangkok Post, the Assistant army chief Preecha “defended his declaration of wealth … saying everything can be explained.” One of the “explanations” was that he was being singled out. He said that “people only focused on his wealth because he is the younger brother of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.” Well, yes, but that doesn’t explain anything.

Another “explanation” is that he ” included accounts of the 3rd Army that he held when he served as its commander.” He doesn’t say which accounts or why he declared assets that weren’t his. He does say that “those accounts [were] worth a total 46.9 million baht.”

General Preecha said “he has revealed all of his accounts and this might have caused some people to misunderstand the value of his assets.” Let’s get this right…. Is he saying he should have concealed some of his his assets so that people would have “understood” the value of his assets as lower than they actually are?

Then there is the fact that his wife apparently has no jewelry. Most other declarations include gold and jewelry, but not Preecha’s. And what about the condo unit in Chaing Mai that is valued at 150,000 baht. Can that be correct? Is it one of the bargains of the decade?

But back to The Dictator.

The Bangkok Post reports that Prayuth warned critics”not to jump to the wrong conclusions about rich officials…”. He’s right. It just might be that all of the police generals have won the lottery.

And, as he says, the “wealth of civil servants — including military officers — should not be judged based simply on salary as some could have assets inherited by their families or those of their spouses…”. We agree that some will be in this category, but really, does Prayuth think that anyone is going to believe him? Is he protecting his brother? Is he delusional? Or is he just drunk with power?