The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is speeding up its probe into alleged irregularities in the procurement of street lamp posts in tambon Racha Thewa in Samut Prakan, which came under fire last year for being unnecessarily expensive.
Assistant to NACC Region 1's secretary-general, Chadarat Anakaorn, said officials have requested procurement documents from the Racha Thewa tambon administration organisation (TAO) and other related agencies, including private firms.
"We have yet to conclude if there are grounds to the allegations. We are being thorough, coordinating with several agencies and calling for documents for examination," she said.
The probe was launched to determine if there were any irregularities in the multi-year project, on which some 871 million baht has been spent.
It was alleged that the procurement did not follow Interior Ministry regulations governing local administration budgets, and the process favoured certain companies. In addition, it was claimed that installation wasn't carried out in line with minimum standards.
Ms Chadarat said the NACC Region 1 office has resolved 13 cases of false asset declaration involving local political officeholders over the past three years.
Nine false declarations were made in the 2019 fiscal year and two each in the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years, she said.
In all of the cases, the defendants, who were executives on local administrative bodies, were found guilty by the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions and banned from politics for five years, she said.