Graft body: Thaksin aided Shin Corp
(TNA) – The Assets Examination Committee has declared former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra quilty of giving undue market advantage to telecom giant Shin Corp owned by his family, and called for a full investigation.
AEC secretary Kaewsan Atibhodi said the panel had found Mr Thaksin guilty of malfeasance and abuse of power during his five years as premier, in order to bring about undue and inappropriate gain to Shin Corp by turning a portion of the mobile phone company's concession royalty into excise tax.
The ASC alleges that while Surapong Suebwonglee served as ICT minister, 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 the value of 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 20 billion baht ($583.8 million) to more than 70 billion baht ($2.043 billion) 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 - conspiring to inflate the price of a parcel of land to more than 600 million baht ($17.5 million) to a private firm with which they had connections, thus reaping an undue profit of 142 million baht ($4.1 million).
Although 52 million baht ($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.
Bangkok Post May 9, 2007