Almost a month after a massive invasion of blackchin tilapia made national headlines, confusion still reigns, with information about the issue still murky.
The Fisheries Department is obliged to clear the air next week, as ordered by the Agriculture Ministry, but there is no certainty if or how it can do so.
Despite a number of state-run and private-sector firms trying to create new dishes made using this fish in the hope of quickly eradicating it from waterways, this merely sends the wrong signal.
The state agency still owes the public answers regarding how it handled, or mishandled, the case involving the importation of 2,000 killer fish by CPF (Charoen Pokphand Foods) for a breeding experiment in 2010. Reports have also emerged claiming that 230,000 tilapia were exported by 11 companies during 2013-2016.
The department put the exports down to a mistaken recording in its system. It said the exported fish were not in fact blackchin tilapia. This requires further examination.
Yet the public remains dubious about the disparity of information between the Fisheries Department and CPF, especially about whether the latter killed all the remaining fish after many died of other causes, in order to end the breeding project.
CPF conceded that, instead of submitting a report to the department in accordance with project regulations, it had "verbally informed" the agency of what it had done.
The agro giant also claimed it had submitted a jar, or jars, of 50 fish carcasses to the agency, but the latter remained adamant that it had not seen or received anything to that effect.
Another question mark hovers over the lack of action taken by the department after it received complaints from shrimp farmers about how the fish may have eaten up so much aquatic life that was being farmed at the time, as well as that inhabiting natural waterways.
Why did the department wait until the problem exploded into a crisis, with the number of affected provinces rising to 16?
At the same time, there are complaints by the House sub-committee tackling the killer fish invasion regarding a lack of cooperation from the department in what is seen as a stonewalling tactic, until the government stepped in -- almost too late.
The public is hoping the truth will come out about the "missing jars" and the lack of action on the part of the Fisheries Department.
Meanwhile, there is a disparity of information on the part of the company.
On Tuesday, the Fisheries Department told the House sub-panel that it had dispatched a team to the company and found no record in its system that the fish were destroyed in 2017. This followed complaints of aquatic creatures disappearing from local waterways years earlier.
And while the company insisted all the fish were destroyed, the team found 10 living fish during a random catch. This information should be verified based on further investigation so those involved will be held accountable.
It is disappointing to see that, while the killer fish infestation has compromised Thailand's food security, the country has no strong measures in place to deal with the problem.
And for some reason, the Fisheries Department seems reluctant to take action.