Pheu
Thai Party Statement

on
Rajabhakti Park Project

  According to the building of statues of former Thai
kings and a historical park in the compound of the army, Hua Hin district,
Prachup Khiri Khan province with the objective to honor and proclaim the fame
of Thai kings in the past who had made great contributions to the nation, the
park was royally named “Rajabhakti Park” which means the park that was built
from the loyalty to the monarchy, which is the beloved institution of the Thai
people.

Rajabhakti project is
very vital to the feelings of the people in the nation. In the proceeding of
the project to its completion, facts were revealed to the public of alleged
corruption and exploitation in various steps of the project. This corruption
not only affect the feeling of the Thai people, but also affects their
confidence in the government policy to suppress corruption.

To bring transparency
to the matter, Pheu Thai Party agrees with the response of the Army, according
to the announcement made by the Army spokesperson stating that it has ordered
the appointment of a fact-finding committee to investigate into the matter
within 7 days.

However, to create
transparency and allow the general public to be informed of the complete
information and knowledge concerning the project since the funds used came from
taxes and donations made by the Thai people, Pheu Thai Party would like to
present the following views and make the following request to the government:

1. 
The government must
declare the details of the project from the start with the names of people who
were/are responsible in each step of the project and all the steps in the
procurement procedure, the entire funds used which comes from the national
budget and donations.

2. 
Since the people responsible for the project conceded to the
media that requests for benefits were made during the proceeding of the project
but claimed that the questionable money has already been donated which
means that irregularities had already occurred.

3. 
There have been consistent news that government officials and
private entities have requested for benefits from the project. Since the
government had announced its key policies to protect the monarchy and suppress
corruption, thus the government must investigate into the matter and identify
those who are responsible and urgently bring the offenders to justice.
Furthermore, if the guilty is a state or government official this would be
regarded as an abuse of power in 
dishonestly extorting or persuading others to give or provide means or benefits
for oneself or others. Also if the official dishonestly demand, request,
receive or willingly accept any means or benefits for oneself or others is in
breach of the criminal code article 148 and 149 and money from this wrongdoing
that is donated is regarded as money laundering in accordance with anti-money
laundering act, B.E. 2542 (1999). The government therefore must file
complaints to the inquiry officials to immediately prosecute the wrongdoers.

4. 
This wrongdoing occurred while the
person responsible for this project held office as Deputy Minister of Defense,
the Army Chief and Secretary General of the NCPO and is presently the Director
of National Anti-Corruption Committee.  For
this reason, there can be no denial of responsibility and thus there is an
urgent need for those directly involved and the commanders in every rank who
are involved to be clear and inform the public how this mentioned group will
take responsibility for the situation.

Apart
for the incident as stated in 1-4 it has been found that government and private
entities involved were able to leave the country as fugitives. This stirred
widespread criticism and suspicion towards the justice process of the nation. The
government being directly responsible must therefore urgently make an
announcement and state the various measures to speedily bring clarity to the
public.

Pheu
Thai Party thus calls for the Prime Minister as the leader of the government
and the Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee to proceed with this
matter in an open and transparent manner and inform the public as soon as
possible.

Pheu
Thai Party

13th
November 2015.