PACC to investigate disaster fraud

UPDATE : 6 February 2010
PACC agents will also travel to the North next week to review several requests for financial aid made by provincial and local authorities relying on possible fake disaster reports, said secretarygeneral Pinyo Thongchai.

The PACC probes found corruption and irregularities in almost all areas where locals could make complaints in the six northeastern provinces. In many disaster reports, pictures of flooded areas elsewhere were used to fool the Interior Ministry, and provincial or local authorities were

An investigation into reliefassistance programmes in six northeastern provinces - in which bogus disasters were made up to qualify for financial aid - will be completed next week, the Office of the Public Sector AntiCorruption Commission (PACC) said yesterday.

allotted Bt50 million in payments, Pinyo said.

"In eight districts of Surin province, construction contracts and procurement deals for relief operations were doctored or written in different versions and then submitted to the ministry. As a result, several areas were pronounced disaster zones without real incidents ever taking place," he said.

In the PACC's report to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, a recommendation will be proposed to standardise criteria for declaring disasters.

"For example, rain volume and duration of floods should be put under the same conditions. In certain cases, seasonal high tides that resemble flooding were reported as 'stagnant inundation'," Pinyo said.

He said local residents should be allowed to take part in assessing disaster reports and certifying disaster status jointly with relief officials. They should also monitor work on disaster and relief infrastructure projects.

"The present process involves only a few officials," Pinyo added.

From: The Nation