The People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) has defended its financial transparency after a letter was posted online urging full disclosure of its donation spending.
Anti-government protesters hold baht banknotes to donate to protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban during a rally at the TOT Plc building in Bangkok on April 30, 2014. (Reuters photo)
A Pantip.com post titled "Yellow robe on fire, stars demand to know where their donated money is" was seen on Thailand's largest forum on Saturday.
The post showed a two-page letter in print sent by "a group of stars and actors who support the PDRC" from the address of the Film Archive, a public organisation in Nakhon Pathom province. The letter had no signature and was addressed to PDRC secretary general Suthep Thaugsuban, who is now a monk at Wat Suan Mokkh in his hometown of Surat Thani.
The letter asked the PDRC to fully disclose the spending of the almost 2 billion baht it claimed donated to the group, demanding the balance sheets be made public and questioning whether an independent auditor had been hired to audit them.
"We do this because many PDRC members have learned disturbing news the donation spending has been fraught with corruption," the letter said.
In response, PDRC spokesman Akanat Promphan wrote on his Facebook on Monday the letter was a fake.
He claimed several "real stars" told him they were surprised because they had not heard anything about the letter or such rumours.
The director of the Film Archive, a public organisation, also denied involvement, Mr Akanat claimed.
"Actually, we have disclosed the information all along. The donations, which amount to less than 2 billion baht, were separated into funds for different purposes. For instance, donations to help farmers take legal action against the government were given to a fund supervised by the Lawyers' Council.
"A fund for the wounded also has spending details on our website and payments were made in cheques only. As for our administrative account, it was later frozen by Khun Tarit [Pengdit, then chief of the Department Special Investigation]. That's why people donated to us in cash and consumer goods instead."
Mr Akanat also said he believed the attempt to tarnish the PDRC was a movement, judging by how fast the post was shared.
"How about the hundreds of billions that we lost under the rice-pledging scheme? Why don't they ask for full disclosure?" he said.
"We PDRC members are ahead of the game. We won't fall for such tricks of the deceptive regime," he said.
Its funds website shows 63.8 million baht in donations as of Sept 18, 2014. According to the information of the same date, 61.7 million baht was given to victims and their families during the PDRC's protests last year.
Of the total, 38 million baht was given to children of 19 dead people at 2 million baht each, 17 million to relatives of the deceased, 4 million to the handicapped at 1 million baht each and 2.7 million baht to the disabled at 300,000 baht each.
The PDRC staged nationwide protests in 2014 against the then Yingluck Shinawatra government. It started with rallies against a botched amnesty bill but later morphed into toppling the government.
Its refusal to back down until the caretaker government resigned was cited as one of the reasons the military staged a coup on May 22, along with the then Pheu Thai-led caretaker government's stance of not quitting.