BANGKOK – Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Thamanat Prompow has denied the allegation that his two close aides hoarded up 200 million medical masks for sales to other countries and had a turnover of about 1 billion baht.
Mr Thamanat said there were attempts to discredit him so that he would be excluded from the cabinet. Such attempts had failed during the recent censure debate, he said.
The deputy minister said he did not know Sornsuwee Puraweeratwatcharee who claimed in an online post to sell medical masks. He said that PittinanRak-ied was appointed as his close aide to honor the former candidate of his Palang Pracharath Party for obtaining at least 20,000 votes in the past general election.
Mr Thamanat quoted Mr Pittinan as saying that he met Mr Sornsuwee at a hotel for the first time and he had made a mistake by taking a photo with Mr Sornsuwee.
Mr Thamanat said he told Mr Pittinan to file a complaint with police to insist on his innocence. He said he would take legal action against anyone who discredited him.
“It is a movement to take the deputy agriculture minister’s seat from me. A man in the party was discredited and was identified as a close aide,” Mr Thamanat said.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha did not make a comment when reporters asked him about the matter.
In another development, the Government Pharmaceutical Organization will transfer its sales of medical masks to the Internal Trade Department on March 10. Many people arrived at GPO at 3am on March 9 to buy masks and 700 queues for the purchase were completely reserved before 8am.
Each person was allowed to buy 10 masks at 10 baht, 450 milliliters of alcohol at 41 baht, and two tubes of hand wash gel at 24 baht each. The whole set was priced at 99 baht.
Natchukorn Kaewpratana said she arrived at GPO at 4am and bought the products for her daughter who was a nurse at Ramathibodi Hospital.
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