By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES Committee has quietly launched an in-depth investigation into unsolved scandals surrounding alleged payoffs over the annual army drafting procedures throughout the country.
House committee chair Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn confirmed today (Feb.2) some people have volunteered to help the House panel by trying to collect facts and figures in unofficial, hidden fashion pertaining to alleged kickbacks demanded by some army officers, including army district registrars in charge of the annual, compulsory drafting procedures, from those who may have looked to dodge the drafting.
The so-called Sor Dor 43 document issued by the army for those who may have been spared the conscription was largely alleged of being purchasable in kickback cash handed out in hush-hush fashion from potential draft dodgers to the army officers in charge.
The House committee chair, concurrently a Move Forward MP, said some light will definitely be shed onto the alleged misconduct on the part of any army officers and whether the illegal business of each draft dodger handing out tens of thousands of baht in alleged payoff may have thrived since the last several decades.
A handsome portion of the alleged kickback money could probably have found its way to the pockets of certain army generals as superiors to those army officers in charge of the conscription, Wiroj said.
It remains to be seen whether any army colonels or lieutenant colonels in charge of the drafting procedures anywhere may have managed to illegally hand out the Sor Dor 43 papers undersigned with their names in exchange for payoffs from any bribe-giving draft dodgers, according to the House committee chair.
The House Armed Services Committee’s latest move toward alleged, sustained wrongdoings and bribery over the annual, compulsory army drafting procedures has emerged after a couple of Move Forward MPs, Jirat Thongsuwan and Supanat Minchainand, had been accused as draft dodgers with forged Sor Dor 43 papers.
Both contended that they had passed the army drafting process with authentic official documents and dared Reserve Officers Training Corps Commander Lt. Gen. Taweepool Rimsakorn and others to prove otherwise.
According to the ROTC chief, the Sor Dor 43 paper in Jirat’s possession could probably have been doctored because its original was not found at the army registrar’s office in his home province of Chachoengsao where he had purportedly undergone the army drafting process in 2011. Jirat maintained that his document was completely authentic whilst Supanat dared anyone to show up in public if they intended to accuse him of having dodged the army drafting and holding a forged paper.
The lawmaker representing the eastern constituency said the draft-dodging accusation launched against him might probably be designed to distract the people’s attention from the army’s lucrative businesses such as golf courses, boxing stadiums and gas stations no profit of which has ever been remitted to the state coffers despite the fact that they were all built on state property.
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