By Thai Newsroom Reporters
NEARLY 4,000 officials currently hired at local administrative units nationwide were finally found to have cheated on last year’s personnel recruitment exams whilst certain, yet-unnamed government officials and politicians suspected to have illicitly gained enormous amounts of payoff cash are currently remaining at large.
According to the latest results of investigation by a central committee under the Department of Local Administration on the fraud conspiracy over the exam papers for personnel to be employed at varied local governments, as many as 5,925 out of a total of nearly 280,000 people who had sat for the exams were found to have cheated, 3,958 of whom have already been employed at varied municipalities and sub-district administrations, better known as Or Bor Tor, in the provinces.
Those suspected cheaters who were found to be mingling with a total of 11,030 officials who honestly passed the exams and currently employed by those local governments will ultimately have their employment terminated with their monthly salary and entitlement pays to be wholly returned, according to Deputy Interior Undersecretary Nirat Pongsitthithaworn who is concurrently acting chief of the Department of Local Administration.
Each suspected cheater was believed to have handed out as much as 700,000 baht in exchange for the alleged doctoring of their exam papers to make themselves qualify for permanent jobs at those local government units.
Those who may have been covertly involved in the fraud conspiracy and those who may have received the payoff cash, combinedly amounting to thousands of millions of baht, are yet remaining at large whilst fears prevail to the extent that only “small fish” among the kickback takers would probably be sacrificed, keeping the likes of high-ranking government officials and politicians at provincial and national levels intact.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul who concurrently acts as interior minister taking supreme command of the Department of Local Administration, among other agencies, has so far remained non-committal, saying progress has been made on the part of the department’s central committee to bring those corrupt elements to justice.
At the height of the exam cheating scandal last month, the prime minister-cum-interior minister ordered a flash transfer of Department of Local Administration director-general Theerut Supavibulpol to an inactive position attached to the Ministry of Interior.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Representative image of exam cheating scandal. Photo – Amarin TV
Front Page: Some exam papers. Photo – PPTVHD36
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