The Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) has brought the case of its controversial 110-billion-baht rubber glove procurement to the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), requesting an investigation into its former acting director.
PWO director Kriangsak Prateepvisut said the organisation filed a complaint with the DSI regarding Roongroj Phutthiyawat for authorising the deal with the Guardian Gloves company.
The PWO asked the DSI to impound a guarantee of two billion baht that the organisation had transferred to the company and to investigate the transaction.
A panel has been set up to investigate other projects that Pol Col Roongroj authorised when he was acting director from 2018 to this year.
Pol Col Roongroj said he was ready to clarify the allegations if he was summoned by the DSI. He insisted that the PWO's procurement of rubber gloves from Guardian Gloves complied with lawful procedures and that there was no corruption.
The acting director defended the procurement, saying he only wanted to help to increase the organisation's revenue since the PWO had not made a profit for five consecutive years.
The PWO's net loss stands at more than 11.7 billion baht.
Pol Col Roongroj said sales of 500 million boxes of rubber gloves, to be sold at 230 baht per box, would result in many billions of baht in profit for the PWO. Half of the profit would go to the government and the other half to the PWO, he said.
Guardian Gloves was registered in June with registered capital of five million baht, which later increased to 2.5 billion baht.
The PWO had received purchase orders for 600 million boxes of rubber gloves.