The National Legislative Assembly (NLA) is pressing hard on alleged corruption at Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Admiral Bannawit Kengrien, chairman of the NLA's special committee for Suvarnabhumi issues, yesterday said that alleged corruption involving all projects could potentially be traced back to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Following the committee's meeting yesterday, Bannawit said the meeting had exchanged information with Democrat Party deputy leader Alongkorn Pholabutr and found that many parts matched.

This was particularly true of information relating to the baggage trolleys, the cooling system and the limousine concession.

The committee is reading all the building contracts in a bid to find out which contractors were responsible and to see which officials checked and accepted the works, a key move to bring wrongdoers to punishment, Bannawit said.

As seen from the information on corruption in all projects, it all could be traced back to the former PM, he added.

"The airport is like a birth-defected child and the person who brought this child to life is having a happy life abroad. We are here to seek punishment for wrongdoers and to improve the airport to be accepted by other countries," he said.

With the authority given to him, Bannawit said he could bring culprits to justice in three months.

Tharet Punnasri, who chaired a sub-panel probing cleanliness and the environment in the airport, reported to the meeting that many automatic fire exits were malfunctioning and would not open until the electricity was cut off.

Metal fire-exit doors could become hot and harmful in cases of fire and many air purifiers and air blowers in smoking rooms were not wired and did not work, possibly due to contractors making haste to complete the work, he said.

The terminal's 400-hertz PC cooling system was also problematic, as some sections of the roof were found to have high heat, which could be a problem in summer, Tharet said. The sub-panel would invite Airport of Thailand (AOT) technical officials to fix the problems, he added.

General Pathompong Kesornsuk, chairman of a sub-panel investigating the AOT-King Power contract, said the duty-free giant's bidding paper for commercial activities in the terminal stated towards the end that, besides the prices quoted, it was willing to pay in advance an additional payment worth Bt2 billion to AOT.

Earlier, King Power executive Wichai Raksriaksorn had said the Bt2 billion paid to AOT was an advance payment due to King Power's financial liquidity.

Pathompong questioned if this Bt2 billion paid in advance was because the company feared they wouldn't get the deal and said that, if it was really as Wichai claimed, the AOT must come out to explain where this money went.

He also said that King Power had used much larger spaces than stated in the contract. For example, it used 37,600 square metres for an area for commercial activities when the contract only allowed 20,000.

Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that Thaksin's lawyer Noppadol Pattama insisted that Thaksin had not overlooked safety concerns in the building of Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The interim government has blamed the ousted premier for a litany of problems, including some 100 cracks that have emerged in runways and taxiways.

Noppadol said: "I don't believe the former PM would have speeded up construction without basing the decision on the possibility for sound construction. He speeded up construction by asking officials to work quickly. That does not mean the construction ignored the rules of engineering."

Thaksin supported the military government's efforts to investigate the cause of the cracks to find the people responsible, the lawyer said, but the contractors, engineers and construction firms who did the work should be blamed if any of the work was substandard.

"The previous government and the PM will take responsibility for policy matters, but if a water pipe leaks and the former PM is supposed to take the blame, that is too much," Noppadol added.

The cracks at Suvarnabhumi have led the Transport Ministry to propose moving some domestic flights back to Don Muang Airport.

Prapasri Osathanont

The Nation