Two Senior Officials Face Charges in Civil Service Exam Rigging Scandal

Two high-level officials have been summoned to hear police charges in relation to the rigging of results of the civil service recruitment examination for local government bodies nationwide. Pol Maj Gen Patanasak Bupphasawan, commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), said on Monday that CSD interrogators had summoned a senior official from the Department of Local Administration and another from Srinakharinwirot University to acknowledge charges. The action follows a raid at a house in Bang Yai district of Nonthaburi where police found local administrative officials altering thousands of exam answer sheets for job applicants who allegedly paid bribes totalling several billion baht. The CSD commander said that both senior officials would face charges, along with the 11 officials who were caught rigging answer sheets at the house in Nonthaburi on June 22. Police had called the accused officials in to acknowledge charges on Friday, he said. Informed souces said they are a former director-general of the Department of Local Administration and a testing director at Srinakharinwirot University. They face multiple charges of malfeasance, document forgery, certification of false documents, input of false information into computer systems and breaching classified documents. The department hired the university to organise the exam. The 11 other accused officials will be charged with illegal assembly, tampering with documents of other people and input of false information into computer systems. The legal action followed the exposure of nationwide results rigging in the Department of Local Administration examination for the recruitment of new officials late last year. About 400,000 people sat the exam, competing for about 6,700 jobs. In the raid in Nonthaburi last month, authorities suspected corrupt officials of taking bribes ranging from 350,000 to 800,000 baht from each exam sitter who wanted to be recruited. The list of recruited candidates was announced. Afterwards, there were complaints about the exam results, and corrupt officials were mobilised to change answer sheet data to match the earlier announced list. Recently three suspects were arrested. They included a former senior local administrator in Phetchabun province who owns the raided house. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Monday that all culprits in the case would be prosecuted and about 5,900 newly recruited officials would lose their jobs. Information Source: Bangkok Post