No more delays. The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and anti-graft agencies must find an answer for the public on whether irregularities were involved in the 1.4-billion-baht procurement of the bogus GT200 bomb detector by Thai state agencies.
The probes, which have been left unresolved for more than three years, must be wrapped up as soon as possible.
The return to the spotlight of the fake bomb detectors at the heart of a global scam has reminded Thais of yet another shameful episode in the history of state procurements. More than a dozen state agencies including the armed forces, Narcotics Control Board and customs spent 1.4 billion baht on various brands of the bogus devices from 2005 to 2007.
What is shameful about the purchases is an apparent lack of oversight. The GT200 and other devices like it that were paraded to state officials around the globe as being able to detect bomb materials or narcotics were not cheap. Some of them were sold at more than 4 million baht per item. Yet, they were obviously never tested for their effectiveness before purchase orders were made.
As became evident later, the state agencies and most importantly, the armed forces which bought the GT200, seemed to have relied only on blind trust in their judgement of the device's worthiness and in approving the state expenses, some with a special, fast-track process.
Even after then prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva set up a scientific double-blind test led by the Ministry of Science and Technology into the device's reliability in 2012, which showed it could detect only four out of 20 targets, he had a difficult time convincing then army chief Anupong Paojinda to stop using the device.
When Mr Abhisit ordered all agencies to stop using the GT200s -- which were shown in earlier tests done by the United States Justice Department to have performed no better than random chance -- because of their uselessness and the risk they posed to personnel on the ground, Gen Anupong refused to obey. Gen Anupong said he understood the scientific tests but insisted operators on the ground could use the device effectively. This attitude must change.
When it comes to accountability, the Office of the Auditor-General told a house panel on security affairs the same month after the test results were unveiled that it would look into allegedly irregular purchases of the device made by the army and air force. Unfortunately, there has been no follow-up on the investigation.
The DSI took up the case in September 2012. A year later it forwarded its findings to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) that three possible illegal factors could be involved in procurement of the controversial scanner -- inflated prices, fraud and price collusion.
The NACC set up a panel to look into the case following the DSI's review. No progress was reported in the probe until later in the same year, but the DSI somehow accepted as a special case the purchases of the GT200 by 13 state agencies because of of its "severity and complexity". Again, there has been no update on the status of the investigation.
The latest development on the fake bomb scanners is Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha assigning Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya as head of the National Anti-Corruption Commission to determine, again, whether the procurement was transparent. It looks like this new probe will go back to square one, reviewing which agencies bought how many of the devices. This has raised fears of a never-ending investigation.
The truth is that it has been more than three years since the GT200 was exposed as being useless. The anti-graft agencies have run out of excuses to drag their feet in the probes. It is time for the public to know whether there were irregularities in the use of taxpayers' money to buy fake goods.