The army has cancelled a project to examine fraudulent GT200 bomb detectors and will return the budget set aside for the scheme to the state, according to army spokesman Gen Santipong Thammapiya.
Gen Santipong said there is no need for the army to check the devices because a legal dispute in which the army has sought 683 million baht in compensation from the distributor has been finalized.
The general was referring to the Central Administrative Court’s ruling last year that ordered the distributor of the device to pay 683 million baht to the army. The distributor filed an application to withdraw an appeal against the ruling in February this year and the request was granted by the Supreme Administrative Court on March 7.
Gen Santipong said the army will return a budget of 2-3 million baht allocated in the 2022 fiscal year to the state coffers while stressing that the army has not set aside a budget in the 2023 fiscal year for examining the faulty GT200 bomb detectors.
He said that some 320 out of 757 GT200 bomb detectors have been examined to gather evidence for the army’s lawsuit seeking compensation from the distributor. He said the army set aside 3.2 million baht in the 2021 fiscal year for the examination and some 4.37 million baht in the 2022 fiscal year.
“The army insists that it spends the taxpayers’ money efficiently,” he said.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday that the budget for the 2023 fiscal year does not include the examination of the faulty GT200 bomb detectors.
The army’s examination of the GT200 bomb detectors came to public attention during the House debate on the 2023 budget bill last week when an opposition MP questioned why the army awarded a 7.5-million-baht contract in March to the National Science and Technology Development Agency to examine 757 GT200 bomb detectors despite it being common knowledge they were fraudulent devices.