In an unusually fair, brave and rounded editorial, yesterday's Nation newspaper in Thailand has called on Airports of Thailand (AoT) to fully justify its termination of King Power International Group's Suvarnabhumi Airport contracts and clean

up its act if it is not to lay itself open to charges of ‘gross hypocrisy’.
While the newspaper is obviously entitled to its view that the AoT Board ‘seems to have done the right thing’ by declaring its intention to hold competitive bids at Suvarnabhumi Airport and to engage the services of more than one duty free operator, it also questions why the new military government appointed AoT has not sought the services of an expert company to manage the process, considering its lack of expertise in this area.
According to the hard-hitting article, ‘this decision smacks of dubious motives’. It goes on to say that even if this new direction will earn maximum revenue for AoT, it is a dangerous path to walk.
As the article courageously states: ‘But it also provides unscrupulous politicians and military officers who wield influence over AoT, now or in the future, the opportunity to engage in corruption. The current AoT board has a duty to prove beyond reasonable doubt that its termination of King Power's contracts was motivated by neither politics nor the personal gain of politicians and military officers who currently wield tremendous power.’
The newspaper says that AoT should ‘put its own house in order’ by eliminating all areas of corruption in its own operations and it mentions contracts associated with car parks and other facilities. It concludes by bravely adding that failure by AoT to put its own house in order and clean up ‘these murky dealings’ will only leave it open to allegations of ‘gross hypocrisy’.
[Bravo…who said the Thai press has no backbone-Ed].