Sleeping Partners

Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) has transformed themselves into a kind of “sleeping partner” and acted like they owned Energy Conservation Promotion Fund (ENCON Fund). EPPO is rumored to only process a project to the Boards and Committee of Funding if a project is from one of their related groups or the project will yield at least 20% of commission to their top rank executives or higher. Anyone or any project that does not meet the condition needs to walk away and not be near. It is known that the recipients are usually the same old companies, while it is clear that the funding process has been managed not by an ametuer, but a professional syndicate. This money sucking process started from a foundation of a certain company to screen the projects, and work as administrator. The company hired 20-30 employees to operate the projects just like normal government officers, and nominated a fresh graduate engineering student as the managing director. Later, the first established company was involved with the funding process of Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency. Thus, the second company had been founded, which had the same pioneers sitting in executive and CEO positions. More importantly, for more than 20 years, special terms and conditions were used in order to nominate these two affiliated companies with a budget of 20-30 million baht per year! Any beneficial parties from this operation should be rich by now. Furthermore, besides the 20% commission, there are rumors that the company used educational institutions as a cover to get the funding approvals. However, the showdown is about to begin after someone hinted the Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha regarding the matter, while the head of EPPO also shows an opposing behavior. This will be something worth watching since the PM has declared long ago that the government will stop corruption.