Matichon columnist Prasong Wisute devoted his column on Aug 7 to a graft allegation against one of Thailand’s top auditors for having taken a sister and daughter on an official trip to Europe using free THAI tickets.  

The NACC appointed a sub-committee chaired by Phakdi Bhodhisiri on July 28 to investigate the case in which a top executive of the Office of the Auditor General of Thailand (OAG) was accused of malfeasance in organizing an official trip to Europe in November 2003.    

In the middle of last week, Prasong received some documents which substantiated the allegation and justified the NACC’s move.  He said that the documents had also been sent to senior people in legal circles, including a former Supreme Court President.

Prasong noted that the NACC had not held a press conference about this, although this has been its usual practice when appointing sub-committees to probe other cases. (See http://nccc.thaigov.net/nccc/1.php)

According to Prasong, the facts of this case are as follows:

- As part of a training course for ‘Modern OAG Executives/Experts’, the OAG organized an overseas study trip to France, Switzerland and Italy on 5-14 November 2003.

- On Oct 8, 2003, the OAG sent a letter to the Managing Director of Thai Airways International (THAI), asking for special air fares for the trip.

- On Oct 9, 2003, the OAG signed a contract worth 3.12 million baht, including the air fares, with Charisma Travel Service Co to organize the trip for 40 OAG officials.

- On Oct 14, 2003, THAI wrote back that it was happy to give discounts on business and economy tickets, plus 10 free Bangkok-Paris economy tickets.

- The OAG paid Charisma 3.12 million baht in cheques. 

- The contract with the travel agency stated the number of passengers was 40, but there were in fact 42 passengers.  The extra passengers were the younger sister and daughter of an OAG executive and not OAG officials.

- Two free tickets were used by the OAG executive’s family members, and the remaining 8 tickets were used by OAG officials.

Prasong said that there were hard copies of evidence, including THAI documents which identified the names of passengers who travelled with the free tickets.  The NACC sub-committee’s job is only to verify the documents.