re: "DSI: Grounds to charge GT200 distributors" (BP, September 28)
Dear editor,
Whilst it is not inappropriate that some businesses connected with the import and distribution of the GT200, which certainly points reliably to gross incompetence, to fraud, and perhaps to corruption, have been found guilty and that others will be tried, some of the official responses manifest a disturbing recklessness.
When defence minister Prawit Wongsuwon insists that "the devices had been tested and found working at the time of purchase," this is tantamount to an admission of gross incompetence by the authorities who were responsible for and accepted that testing. A half competent high school student in a STEM program could have designed a double-blind test that would have proven the devices worthless. Gross incompetence is the least awful possibility that is plausible.
Even more reckless is the statement by a member of the anti-corruption commission, who loftily intones that the expensive pieces of worthless plastic with a cheap antenna are as valuable as a Buddhist amulet, that "The equipment, even though it may not be efficient, has a high morale value." Although this defence of the indefensible by an official from the anti-corruption commission surely deserves the loan of a gold Rolex, since relying on "the equipment" would seem to have posed an actual threat to national security, not to mention reckless endangerment of the lives of conscript soldiers on the ground who blindly relied on it based on nothing more than the unfounded word of their superior officers, this must also appear suspiciously like dereliction of duty to exercise proper oversight, the sort of failure that led to former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra being sentenced to prison. Or are some held to a different standard, one infallibly determined by the devotees of those magical GT200s?
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on September 30, 2018, under the title "Reckless statements" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1549262/reckless-statements
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