By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER PAETONGTARN Shinawatra today (Jan. 13) categorically denied she may ever have concealed billions of baht in cash supposedly given by her father/de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra.
Paetongtarn told reporters at Government House that all her assets and liabilities earlier declared to and then disclosed to the public by the National Anti-Corruption Commission were entirely truthful and accurate and that no accounting wizardry had been practiced to conceal any of her father’s wealth among her Shinawatra family members as alleged.
She confirmed she had truthfully “borrowed” a combined four billion-plus baht in cash from her mother/Thaksin’s former spouse Podjaman na Pombejra, her brother Panthongtae Shinawatra and her sister Pintongta Kunakornwong, among others. But the woman prime minister declined to tell what she may have spent the borrowed money on.
Paetongtarn was officially reported by the anti-graft agency to possess 13.8 billion baht in assets and 4.4 billion baht in liabilities purportedly total of the “borrowed” money from her family members.
Of that total wealth, the billionaire power player’s daughter-turned-prime minister reportedly owns 1.08 billion baht in bank deposits, 358 million baht in property and concession rights and 583 million baht in real estate assets, plus some 30 million baht worth of land in Hokkaido prefecture of Japan and some 9.9 million baht worth of land in Khlong Luang district of Pathum Thani.
Besides, she owns 23 automobiles, mostly of luxury types including a 10.6 million baht Bentley, a 6.7 million baht Rolls-Royce and a 3.19 million baht Tesla car.
The prime minister’s father who had run the country following the 2001 election until he was ousted in the 2006 coup had been narrowly exonerated by the Constitutional Court of some 46 billion baht in wealth concealment charges.
The judges of the Constitutional Court voted 8:7 to endorse a ruling to the extent that Thaksin had made “spontaneously erroneous” arrangements of a total 76 billion baht in assets of his possession without premeditated malice, thus waiving the wealth concealment case against him.
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Top and Front Page: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra talking to the press at Government House today, Jan. 13. 2025. Photos: Thai Rath
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