The opposition yesterday ridiculed the Army's "spy blimp" assigned to cover the restive South, saying it cost the country a bundle but could not even fly at first, takes fuzzy pictures and now is a sitting duck for snipers.
The military allocated Bt340 million to buy the aircraft for manned aerial missions to survey and take images of the southern border provinces.
The airship has had a lot of problems and was unable to operate in such a sensitive area in the deep South where violence has claimed more than 4,400 lives since 2004, the opposition said.
The procurement of the airship was also riddled with irregularities, Pheu Thai MP Somchai Petprasert said during the censure debate.
The military sent only three technicians and nine observers to inspect the airship for a short period before making the decision to pay as much as 70 per cent of its price to the manufacturer, he said.
The airship could not even fly when it was handed over to the military, as it leaked, he said. It was sent back to the United States for repairs but now it can fly only at 3,000 feet, rather than 10,000ft as the military had wanted.
"The 3,000ft ceiling might be high enough to survive a small arm attack but have you ever thought about a sniper rifle which could hit the target from far away?" Somchai said.
Suthep Thaugsuban, the deputy prime minister overseeing security affairs, said the airship was acquired according to proper procedures. Nothing was wrong.
"Of course, it couldn't fly at the beginning but it could fly after repairs and 3,000ft is high enough for operations," he said.
Somchai said the camera installed on the airship was almost worthless as it could not take high-resolution pictures at its cruising altitude.
"From the height of 3000ft, it can't see any car's licence plate clearly. May I ask how can the military's operations rely on this quality?" he said.
Suthep argued that no matter what the resolution was, high or low, the camera worked.
Somchai also criticised the procurement of 1,474 military trucks, saying that their quality was not better than ordinary trucks on the road.
By requirement, the military wanted imported military trucks for military purposes but the government imported only the chassis and bodies to assemble them in Thailand. The price tag of Bt3.3 million was not supposed to be for imported military vehicles, he said.
Somchai also showed pictures of the truck during the debate to prove that the trucks were too vulnerable to be a military vehicle.
Suthep said the decision for the truck project was made by the previous government and the trucks unfortunately were delivered to the military during his government.
Basically the trucks are acceptable since they would be used only in normal conditions, not for combat in the deep jungle, he said.
The opposition also accused Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of leaving security matters in the deep South only to the military. The prime minister should look into the details of equipment procurements to see they fit operational requirements, they said.
Abhisit said he has never ignored the procurement of military equipment. If the government found any of them could not work properly or was procured irregularly, it would be scrapped, he said.
The government rejected the GT200 bomb detectors shortly after they were scientifically proven to be unworkable, he said.
The Abhisit government ordered scientific testing of the bomb detectors last year after foreign media reported that the GT200 does not work any better than a dowsing rod.
