It's been almost five weeks since the Assets Examination Committee began sharpening its knives to carve up the crooked politicians under former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's regime. The exposure of their self-serving shenanigans was supposed to lead to the seizure of their ill-gotten assets.

So far, however, the AEC has produced no real results to substantiate the main rationale for the September 19 coup - that Thaksin and his cronies were really corrupt.

Auditor-General Jaruvan Maintaka vowed on September 21 - two days after the coup and just before she was appointed to the AEC - to probe alleged corruption by the deposed government after the junta secured her status.

"A big issue is the graft scandal involving the CTX bomb scanner purchase that can be concluded within a few days," Jaruvan said then. "I believe, with the evidence we have at hand, we can punish those who are corrupt."

On September 25, she said seven people were likely to be found to have acted improperly in connection with the CTX scandal.

But Jaruvan and the AEC have gone silent on that case along with the seven other graft cases that the AEC has taken up.

They include the airport link project of the State Railway of Thailand, the airport duty-free concession, the installation of the airport pipeline system, the airport security contract and the tax liability for the Shin-Temasek deal.

Does the AEC have any work to show for itself? Well, some.

Two key AEC members, Sawat Chotephanich as chairman, and Jaruvan, started out disputing the legal scope of the committee in investigating the sale of shares of Shin Corp, followed by the seizure of related assets.

Sawat insisted the law did not allow the AEC to take such action and that allegations must be supported by evidence. However, Jaruvan believed the AEC had the proper authority. Finally, she succeeded in lobbying the most powerful ruling body, the Council for National Security, to force Sawat to quit.

Soon afterwards, the Office of Auditor-General and the AEC, which share the same office building, beefed up security by requiring reporters to register for identification tags and limiting the number of reporters and how long they can work in the building.

Jaruvan claimed that some "people with bad intentions" had pretended to be reporters and had committed crimes in the building.

She went further, claiming that security had been stepped up because of bomb threats and thefts of property in the building. She said items like mobile phones, plates and cups had gone missing since an army of reporters began to cover the office.

Apart from Jaruvan, AEC secretary Kaewsun Atibodhi blamed the media for publicising the eight cases the committee was investigating and causing some evidence to be destroyed by wrongdoers.

Just a few days ago, the AEC put four more cases on its docket and appointed more than 10 subcommittees along with more assistants to deal with the backlog. But still no progress has been made in any of those graft cases released to the public.

The hush at the AEC was followed by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin's shocking admission in an interview with Nation Multimedia Group editors on Tuesday that post-coup investigations so far have uncovered no solid links between Thaksin and major corruption scandals.

Could it mean the AEC is attempting to buy time and save face if no hard proof could be found? If so, how could it tell the whole nation that the coup was legitimate and Thaksin was corrupt?

Weerayut Chokchaimadon

The Nation