Published on May 13, 2005

ITO Joint Venture Co Ltd has apparently been overpaid for the work it has done on the baggage-handling system at Suvarnabhumi Airport, and there is not enough money left to cover the cost of the 26 CTX scanners it is supposed to install, the opposition said yesterday.

Democrat Party deputy leader Alongkorn Polabutr said ITO, awarded the concession to install the airport’s baggage-handling system, had already been paid 69 per cent of the funds earmarked for the system. This means there is apparently not enough money left to pay for the scanners, he said. “This resulted in questions being raised by members of the House committee investigating the scanner purchase,” said Alongkorn, vice chairman of the committee.

“We’ll ask NBIA [New Bangkok International Airport Co] to consider and answer this point.”

The Bt4.3-billion earmarked for the system includes Bt2 billion for the

scanners, which have not yet been

delivered.

If NBIA has already paid out 69 per cent, or Bt2.9 billion, that leaves only Bt1.4 billion for the scanners.

The Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, has asked US authorities to grant Thai investigators access to the results of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s probe into the purchase of the CTX machines.

While the ministry waits to hear back from US authorities, Sombat Amornwiwat, chief of the Special Investigation Department, said yesterday that the government commission he headed was drafting questions relating to the purchase that would be sent to US officials and GE InVision management.

GE InVision is the manufacturer of the CTX machines.

In related news, acting Auditor-General Khunying Jaruvan Maintaka said she would have accepted an offer to look into the scandal had she been officially asked. The media has called on Jaruvan to probe the affair.

Jaruvan said she had detected some irregularities in the purchase before her status as the head of the Auditor-General’s Office became uncertain in July last year.

“The sky would have come crashing down if I had been assigned to investigate the matter. But I know that it would be impossible for that to happen,’’ she said.

Jaruvan’s status has been in limbo since the Constitution Court ruled last July that the selection process used to appoint her in May 2001 had violated the Constitution.

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