Suwat Abhaipak, PAD lawyer, announced today 13 June that he and a team of 20 PAD laywers are to sue PTT and a large network of politicians, businessmen, banks and more at criminal, civil, administrative and political courts. He said that there would be more than a hundred lawsuits filed in order to take PTT back and right an injustice.
Thailand has the world's 22nd largest gas reserves and 34th largest oil reserves (more than Dubai). The oil is of high quality with very low sulfur.
PTT has decided not to refine it and selling, rather it is exporting this low sulfur crude and is importing high sulfur oil to be refined.
In African nations, usually concessions are signed at 80:20 percent - the state gets 80 percent and the oil companies get 20 percent. Thailand only gets 6% out of the operations in the gulf of Thailand.
Suwat also questioned why PTT should export good oil, import low quality crude and also do so at Singapore prices which include lots of transportation and taxes. The ones who lose in this scenario are the consumer.
"This is fraud at every level, Thais are suffering for each and every litre sold," he said.
PTT is 51% state owned. From 30 billion Baht profit a year, now it is on 300-400 billion a year. They said it is fair as the shares will be distributed to the poeple. 8 million shares to everyone. However, the shares were sold out in 17 seconds in what was promised to have been a random selection.
The computer server for the distribution was at Siam Commercial Bank.
If it was truly random, why did people like Prayut Mahakisiri and Suriya Jungrungruengkit get so many shares? Plus lots more of Thaksin's friends such as Wiset Jupibarn and Olan Chaiprawat, both of which progressed to become Ministers, he questioned.
This is fraud and next week a team of 20 PAD lawyers who cannot be bought will launch more than a hundred lawsuits against this network. Anyone who has signed up for PTT shares can join as a co-plaintiff.
The key defendants are SCB, the Thaksin Cabinet at the time and the Energy Price Committee (rough translation - คณะกรรมการราคาน้ำมัน) as well as many individuals who were complicit in the fraud. For instance, during the valuation, a PTT committee said that the value of its refineries was zero as it was losing money on refining.
Rosana did some work and managed to get the gas pipelines back, but she was not an expert in criminal law.
Finally Suwat Abhaipak said that after announcing this on a radio programme yesterday, every one of the callers asked for a PAD mob in front of PTT to reminisce about old times.
