Surakiart's Foreign Ministry embroiled in passport corruption scandal

This is Surakiart's Foreign Ministry, now embroiled in a typical government contract corruption scandal. How can anyone take Surakiart seriously as a candidate for UN Secretary General when human rights and bureaucratic reform are the top two "must-do-better" categories for the next Secretariat? After Surakiart's recent spearheading of a 1 billion US dollar loan to the pariah regime in Myanmar (Burma) plus the Thai Foreign Ministry passport scandal detailed below, there is reason enough why his bid should spectacularly fail.

from the Nation:

Auditors find irregularitiesin Bt7-bn bid

Foreign Ministry asked to explain awarding of big contract to a firm called 'incapable'

The Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) has found irregularities in the Foreign Ministry's tender for a Bt7-billion electronic passport project, a source said.

"There is a pattern of irregularities. It seems unfair to award the project to an incapable company [consortium] and leave others disqualified with unfair practices. This has caused the country a huge revenue loss," said an OAG source, who asked not to be named.

He said the OAG investigation was about to end and the result would be forwarded to the Attorney-General's Office. At the moment, the investigation had not gone far enough to implicate those who might be involved in irregularities, he added.

He noted that it seemed irregular for the ministry to adopt the project knowing it would lose almost Bt1,000 per passport to a private consortium.

In January last year, the ministry awarded the e-passport project to a consortium of Chan Wanich Co Ltd, Chan Wanich Security Printing Co Ltd and Singapore-based NEC Solutions Asia Pacific Pte Ltd.

The e-passports have technology offering improved security, including images and a person's biographical and biometric data, as required by International Civil Aviation Organisation standards.

Under the contract, the consortium is obliged to produce 7 million e-passport books over a 10-year period. In return, it will be paid Bt953.25 for each passport.

Four consortia submitted bids to the ministry. The unsuccessful ones were MFEC Consortium, 3S E-Passport Consortium (which included Sagem Defense Securite, Summit Computer Co Ltd and Setec Oy) and ACC Consortium.

Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Kitti Wasinondh said he knew nothing about an investigation into bidding for the project. He said an investigation by the OAG and Attorney-General's Office had centred on the winning consortium's ability to fulfil the contract, including its ability to produce 3,000 passports in a day and to check identities.

"It's not about the price or other things. These problems have been corrected, and we are prepared to quote the penalties that the consortium has to pay for any mishap," he said.

Kitti said the investigation was a routine practice, given the huge cost. He was also confident that no ministry official would have colluded to award the project to the Chan Wanich-led consortium.

"I have heard only complaints from the losing bidders. Some quoted a lower price, but their specifications were not up to standard and had less memory capacity. How can they say the winner is incapable? After the problems at the start of the project were fixed, right now the queues on immigration booths are shorter and everybody is commending the faster service," Kitti said.

The ministry's consular department director-general Theerakun Niyom also said the OAG investigation was a routine one to check whether administration was in line with the project's terms of reference. It had focused on the functioning of the "auto gate", which had problems and obstructed production of the e-passport.

The ministry's permanent secretary-general Krit Garnjana-goonchorn had instructed officials to cooperate fully with the OAG in the investigation, he added.

Chan Wanich Security Printing, part of the winning consortium, made news after the Election Commission was found to have spent Bt2 billion on organising the April election. It was among companies awarded projects by the commission without bidding. It was commissioned to print election ballots at a cost of Bt63.44 million.

With Marnchai and Thanapol Kongboonma as directors, the company has run a printing house for 83 years, supplying special items including bank books to financial institutions.

It also won the bidding for the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology's first smart-card project. After the bidding was recalled, it lost the deal to another company.