Yesterday’s public debate about the ongoing ‘bomb-scanners for the airport’ scandal seems to have been an overwhelming victory for Democrat MP’s.

The whole reason this has come into the light is for a number of reasons.

1. The price for procurement of some 26 CTX scanners for the new Bangkok Airport somehow had one billion baht added onto it after quotation. That’s 1,000,000,000 baht (a lot of money).
2. 1.5 billion baht has been paid even though no scanners have been delivered and even after it became clear they would not be delivered on time, payments were still occuring.
3. This was all going on with the full knowledge that the machines would never be delieverd because one of the companies involved (GE InVision) are under investigation in the US for corrupt business practices.

The man behind the scandal, Transport Minister Suriya Jungrung-reangkit, presented a piss-poor, half-arsed attempt to explain himself using slides and charts that had been prepared in advance (allegedly by Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob), excuses such as attempting to blame the opposition for only giving half the truth (although he failed to produce the other half) and even went so far as to say that the Democrats were ‘spoiled sports’ and that they were just upset because they lost the last general election. Clearly, he is either an imbecile or wasn’t taking the whole thing very seriously.

Last week we had a TRT MP diving from his apartment balcony and this week we have one who has done the same thing in a metaphorical sense. Of course, should he be dismissed, someone just like him will take his place.