Published on June 27, 2005

Opposition: Documents provided by govt figures confirm irregularities in the purchase of CTX scanners

The opposition was certain yesterday that its “damning evidence” in the CTX scandal, coupled with “useful” documents supplied by unnamed government figures, would be enough to condemn Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit in today’s censure debate.

“There are going to be a few issues that Suriya will not be able to explain,” Democrat Party spokesman Ong-art Klampaiboon said.

“So it’s safe to say that the Transport minister will find it difficult to explain himself after Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva makes his opening statement in [today’s] debate,” he said.

Abhisit, as the opposition leader, is to begin the onslaught by detailing allegations of mismanagement against Suriya over his handling of the project to buy CTX 9000 bomb scanners for Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Ong-art said yesterday that a few days ago unnamed government figures “with good intentions towards the country” had sent the opposition documents concerning the contract and the project’s “money trail”. The new information was “completely compatible” with information already gathered by the opposition, he said.

“We are sure the evidence to be disclosed in the debate will convince the public that there were irregularities in the purchase of the CTX machines,” the opposition MP said.

The party spokesman said that in addition to Abhisit, five other Democrat MPs would take part in grilling Suriya: Thaworn Senniam, Kiat Sitthee-amorn, Alongkorn Pollabutr, Chanchai Issarasenarak and Sirichok Sopha.

He said the party had not yet decided whether Abhisit or Democrat Party secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban would make the concluding statement for the opposition.

Sirichok, who has been tasked with detailing the money trail in the controversial project, was confidence yesterday Suriya would be unable to explain away the information the opposition MPs had gathered.

“My colleagues and I are well prepared for the debate. We prepared using invented [debate] scenarios and corrected any loopholes in our case after exploring all the possible responses by the transport minister,” he said.

Thaworn yesterday said a senior industry expert had told him the baggage-handling system selected for Suvarnabhumi Airport was more expensive and of inferior quality to those produced by competitors.

Chat Thai deputy leader Chuwit Kamolvisit said he would disclose new information during the debate that had not been reported in the media. He said the “evidence” would point to irregularities in the controversial baggage-handling project.

The outspoken MP claimed he had obtained some of the information from Worapoj Yasadatt, the managing director of Patriot Business Consultants, the local dealer of CTX bomb-scanner manufacturer GE InVision. Chuwit said he had been friends with Worapoj for more than 30 years. However, Worapoj yesterday denied he had supplied any information to Chuwit.

Suriya was absent from yesterday’s special Cabinet meeting at Government House, but colleagues denied he was preparing for today’s censure debate.

In a related development, 41 per cent of 1,065 Bangkok residents surveyed over the weekend said they had “much interest” in the censure debate, Suan Dusit Poll said yesterday. Although the CTX scandal has been in the news for several weeks, respondents said they still found the issue interesting and wanted to hear more facts in the case.

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