Royalist “space”

The Bangkok Post has a report on the continuing corruption saga over the collapsed State Audit Office (SAO) building.

It say that there are now reports of “longstanding irregularities in the construction project, which began in 2009.” That takes it back to the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime spawned by the military.

Citing Isra News Agency, it is claimed that last year the National Anti-Corruption Commission “found grounds to allegations against former Auditor-General Khunying Jaruvan Maintaka and others regarding a 25.8-million-baht design contract linked to the project.”

For those who haven’t been following PPT for all these years, Jaruvan has quite a long history. We think our first post mentioning her was in mid-2009, when she was called in as a reliable “investigator” to sort out the Abhisit government’s problems with corruption among royalists “managing” its Office for Sufficiency Economy Community Projects.

By that time, however, she was already known as a Thaksin Shinawatra foe, supporter of the 2006 coup and military bootlicker. She became one of the heroes of the People’s Alliance for Democracy and other royalists and joined with PAD in petitioning the king to use Article 7 of the 1997 Constitution to replace Thaksin as premier.

After the 2006 military coup, Jaruvan became a member of the junta’s Assets Scrutiny Committee that was given wide powers to investigate alleged corruption in the Thaksin government. Her interventions were at times bizarre and highly public, but the ASC did the job the junta tasked it with, and several cases were progressed.

In 2010, Jaruvan was back in the news for her refusal to step down at the Office of the Auditor-General, a position she had held since 2001. Early on, the Constitutional Court had ruled her appointment unconstitutional and the palace intervened to have her confirmed. She thus refused to leave because she claimed she was “royally-appointed” and thus required a “royal dismissal” This was apparently accepted by the palace.

At that time, there were a string of allegations about her nepotism and corruption, including a story about her new, very expensive and very large family home. Jaruvan dug in, explaining: “I intend to maintain the status of the Office of the Auditor-General as an organisation to protect the country’s money and interest. I will remain loyal to the monarchy until my last breath…”.

Following the 2014 military coup, Jaruvan became a royalist senator.

All of this history means the claims of her corruption when Auditor-General seem unremarkable. The Post report states:

Suspicions of irregularities first emerged when the SAO issued an invitation for bids to design the new office building on Oct 28, 2009. The terms of reference allowed juristic persons to bid without requiring them to hold an architect or engineering licence from the relevant professional councils.

This prompted concern from the Architect Council of Thailand, which sent a letter dated Nov 12, 2009, to the SAO urging a revision of the qualifications to ensure that bidders held valid professional licences.

Jaruvan ignored this and “allowed the bidding process to continue unchanged — a decision seen as a violation of the Architect Act. It was later alleged that this decision favoured a joint venture, Cabinet Engineer-Arwut Ngernchuklin, which lacked the required professional credentials.”

A company was selected, but this was overturned in “a review of the selection without a clear justification.” Even so, Jaruvan formed a review committee, “which ultimately reversed the decision and awarded the contract to Cabinet Engineer–Arwut Ngernchuklin. The 25.8-million-baht contract was signed on Feb 11, 2010.”

It was in September 2011 that the NACC ruled that both Jaruvan and her deputy “were subject to criminal investigation under Section 157 of the Criminal Code and Section 12 of the anti-price collusion law.” The NACC then:

submitted its findings to the Office of the Attorney General and urged the SAO to seek compensation for damages. It also recommended that the actions of the joint venture be reported to the Comptroller-General’s Department.

Until now, however, the case remains unresolved.

Royalist corruption is treated very cautiously and impunity is the rule.