Thaksin found quilty of malfeasance  

BANGKOK, May 9 (TNA) – Thailand's Assets Examination Committee has resolved that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is quilty of committing a series of misconducts in office which it says gave undue market advantages to telecom giant Shin Corp owned by his family and to launch probe into such scandals.

AEC secretary Kaewsan Atibhodi said the panel had found Mr. Thaksin guilty of malfeasance, that he had abused his power during his five years of premiership to bring about undue and inappropriate gain to Shin Corp by turning a portion of the concession royalty into excise tax.

During the tenure of former ICT minister Suraphong Suebwonglee, Mr. Kaewsan charged, telecom firms were required under concessions granted by state-owned TOT and CAT Telecom companies to pay 10 per cent in excise tax, plus 15 per cent in royalty fees.

Such tax measures, under which Advance Info Services (AIS), a Shin Corp affiliate, was obliged to pay only a 25 per cent tax, compared to DTAC's 30 per cent excise tax levy, were determined to deter relatively new and small telecom firms which would otherwise have offered alternative, price-competitive services to the public, according to the AEC secretary.

Shin Corp, which should have paid the royalty in full, or by 25 per cent as earlier required, had earlier faced no major competition in the telecom sector, thanks to Thaksin-facilitated tax measures which  kept other telecom firms under relative competitive disadvantage, he said.

Such taxation was adopted by the Thaksin administration in apparent breach both of the Constitution and a Telecommunications Act which called for free and fair competition in telecom services, he said.

Mr. Kaewsan said Shin Corp stocks, 49 per cent of which had been held by the Thaksin family, had sharply risen upon the introduction of the excise tax for telecom firms and culminated in a surge of the former prime minister's wealth from Bt20 billion (US$583.8 million) to more than Bt70 billion (US$2,043 million) during a five year period.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kaewsan added, the Assets Examination Committee also found former National Housing Authority chief Chuanpit Chaimuanwong and other senior officials of the agency guilty of misconduct charges under which they had conspired to inflate the price of a parcel of land to more than Bt600 million (US$17.5 million) to a private firm with which they had connections, thus reaping an undue profit of Bt142 million (US$4.1 million).

Although Bt52 million (US$1.5 million) of that total was distributed as a bonus to NHA personnel, the agency's chief and his accomplices were considered to have committed malfeasance in office, the AEC chief said.

TNA

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AIS denies gaining upper hand from telecom excise

Advanced Info Service (AIS) Wednesday denied the charge from the Assets Examination Committee (AEC) that it gained a special advantage from the telecom excise policy introduced by the government of the ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

In a press release, AIS said that no telecom operators had paid a lower concession fee but the same amounts went to the government under the telecom excise law, which has already been revoked by this government.

The company added that what had been changed by the policy was that instead of paying the fees fully and directly to TOT or CAT Telecom, both of which then passed on the fee to its 100-percent shareholder the Finance Ministry, the telecom operators had paid part of the concession fee directly to the Excise Department.

The Nation

Quote:Thailand's Assets Examination Committee has resolved that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is quilty.

Problem is.... They don't have the mandate to find anyone guilty even under the CNS. They can only put forward their report along with all evidence to the Attorney General who will decide if the case has enough merit to be prosecuted or not.

Malfeasance.....I may guess that the opposite would be feasance

Now take any GREEDY individual and put them in a position of power and then 1 year later look at their track record and ask your self Feasance or Malfeasance.... and the question arises "In Their Duty To Whom" .... I think you will find a very high degree of feasance to themselves .... especially in a country that is individually very low on self honor...