A scandal involving a charity run by a former beauty queen has left Thai authorities scrambling to conduct a check on charities and foundations across the country.
Panadda “Boom” Wongphudee, 50, winner of Miss Thailand in 2000, was arrested on Nov 6, along with her husband Atip Anantawan, 53, on charges such as public fraud and money laundering.
About 527 million baht (RM63.6mil) out of 815 million baht (RM98.4mil) donated to Ongkorn Thamdee, known in English as the Do Good Foundation, was allegedly siphoned for the couple’s personal use to pay credit card bills, buy luxury goods and build a pool villa in Phuket.
Observers say the case shows that Thailand’s regulations governing charitable organisations are often outdated and not enforced consistently, and greater transparency is needed.
“These cases keep coming back, and each time the money is larger and the method is the same: donations go into a personal account that nobody checks,” said Boonwara Sumano, a research fellow at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI).
According to Thailand’s 1944 Fund Raising Control Act, one requirement is that fundraising can be done only after applying for a permit. Another is that the fundraiser must announce the total money and property received and paid to the public from time to time.
But following investigations of the Do Good Foundation, the authorities revealed last Wednesday that it had failed to submit income and expenditure statements, or annual balance sheets, since its registration in 2022.
“This foundation ran large campaigns through social media, including for flood relief, and the system showed no record of it ever applying for a permit. The authorities only noticed after the scandal broke,” Boonwara said.
She added that different government departments are responsible for checking on different requirements of an organisation, resulting in “each agency assumes another one is watching”.
The latest scandal comes after the September arrest of a 66-year-old abbot accused of embezzling 100 million baht (RM12.1mil) from Wat Phutthaisawan, a historic royal monastery in Ayutthaya, about 80km north of Bangkok. — The Straits Times/ANN
