Pol Gen Pateep Tanprasert, a former police chief, admitted he proposed that the construction of 396 police station buildings nationwide to be carried out under a single contract, in line with a cabinet resolution, in testimony to the Department of Special Investigation officials on Wednesday.
The former police chief testified about his role in the Royal Thai Police Office building project.
He brought along documents related to the project, including a cabinet resolution which approved a single sum of money for the construction of police stations in the nine police regions. The sum was to be drawn in tranches from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 budgets.
Based on the cabinet resolution, Pol Gen Pateep said, he proposed that the construction be carried out under a single contract, instead of nine separate contracts involving each of the nine regional police bureaus, to facilitate the management of the allocated budget.
In doing this, an amount of 800 million baht of the allocated budget could be saved, he added.
Pol Gen Pateep said he only made the proposal, but the bidding for the construction and awarding of the contract to PCC Development and Construction Co (PCC) was done after he retired from the police service in 2010.
He insisted that there was no political interference in the bidding process.