Mr Sira also made it plain that he will be questioning the Governor’s superiors themselves, the Ministry of Interior in Bangkok, where Mr Sira’s connections are likely to be more direct than those of our provincial head honcho, and asking how such complacency had been allowed under the current governorship.
And that message was delivered literally just after Mr Sira had filed a complaint with the Provincial Ombudsman’s Office to investigate the project.
Even before talking with the Governor, Mr Sira confirmed that he had already contacted Department of Land Director General Prayoon Rattanasenee and filed a formal request to investigate the project.
It’s almost as if Mr Sira knows that if you file enough complaints with the right agencies, you’re bound to hit one that has not been paid enough to take a bullet for allowing a construction project to proceed.
Yet, with the project valued at B2.1 billion, at that price it is possible for enough people around here to provide all the stamps needed.
But the icing on the cake was Mr Sira also announcing that he will be calling on the Anti-Money Laundering Office to investigate the assets owned by and any financial transactions involving any officials involved in the case in any way. That alone is normally enough to prompt most Thai “influential figures” to call off their gunmen.
It’s easy to think that all of this is a bluff, but at his press conference on Wednesday Manassanan Nararattanawee, the CEO of Kata Beach Co Ltd, as the owner of The Peak Residence development, failed to denounce or deny the death threats. Also odd is that no law-enforcement agencies have affirmed that the death threats are to be treated as genuine.
If the death threats are genuine, then whoever made that call just made it personal.
And Mr Sira will have support. His party will not have forgotten the SorPorKor scandal, and the mass corruption behind the theft of huge tracts of state land. Failing to resolve that issue led to the fall of the Democrat government within just six months.