Published on October 18, 2005

Labour Minister Somsak Thepsuthin has urged the House of Representatives’ Labour Comm-ittee to reveal the evidence it has on senior officials who sought exorbitant fees from Thai workers wanting to work abroad.

Somsak defended the ministry’s fact-finding committee’s over its “slow” response to claims that workers sent to Taiwan were overcharged. He said the review was done according to evidence and had taken to prepare.

The fact-finding panel, headed by General Thanu Sriyangkool, said it was middle-ranking labour officials in the North and Northeast who had charged workers up to Bt150,000 per head while processing their applications to work in Taiwan.

He urged the House’s Labour Committee, which claims to have evidence against senior officials, to reveal what it has uncovered.

“I, too, want to know. We can use the evidence against the officials involved,” he said.

The investigation into whether officials charged workers’ exorbitant fees to work abroad emerged after a riot by Thai labourers in Taiwan in August, reportedly because of poor working and living conditions.

After the fact-finding panel revealed to the public that many workers had been charged huge fees, governors and provincial employment offices from many provinces sent letters claiming their innocence to the Employment Department, an informed source at the Labour Ministry said.

The Employment Department is preparing to conclude its probe into the broker-fee claims, which allegedly involved three private employment companies. And the fact-finding committee, headed by Pairat Lamyong, is due back this week from Taiwan, where it has been gathering information and interrogating workers, the source added.

Somsak also commented on the recent transfer of labour official Pratheep Songlamyong to Taipei to help at the office of the ministry’s permanent-secretary, saying many people had complained because Pratheep has no experience in working overseas.

Pratheep should work somewhere else before Taipei, as where there are many problems to solve, he said. But it was not decided yet if a Thai official from Kuwait or Greece would replace Pratheep.

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