Somsak
House Speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont, who is leading a group of 35 people on a jaunt to Europe, may be forced to make a sudden change of plan by joining the investment exhibition in China's Sichuan.
Somsak could land in hot water if he insists on completing the European tour as the House panel on parliamentary affairs is preparing to summon him for investigation after news broke that the nine-day foreign trip may have cost taxpayers up to Bt7 million.
Somsak has come under heavy criticism after media revelations of extravagant and lavish functions packed on the itinerary from September 19-27. Among those on the trip are his daughter Ploypailin.
Somsak said his daughter is paying for her own expenses. He avoided questions about the funds used for this trip but admitted that it was a mistake and he would make sure it is not repeated.
"We are considering whether to cancel the European trip and join the investment expo in China, to which we are officially invited," he said.
Other members whom he brought along and made his trip more controversial were Pheu Thai party-list MP Puwanida Khuplin and her two aides. The media members he invited are not Parliament-beat reporters but those known to have close ties with the government and sports media led by Chakrapan Yomchinda, his wife and daughter.
Chakrapan defended himself on Facebook, saying he picked up all the travel expenses of his wife and daughter.
The European excursion includes a visit to the British Parliament, dinner at Four Seasons Hotel in London, dinner in the city's Bloomsbury area and an overnight stay at the Park Plaza Westminster yesterday. Today, the group will visit Oxford University and the Imperial War Museum.
Tomorrow, after visiting The Economist Group, they will shop at Borough Market and watch the Premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool. On Sunday, they are scheduled to visit the BBC TV centre and watch another Premier League match, before leaving for France.
The group will visit the French Parliament and Louvre Museum in Paris, go on a dinner cruise on the Seine on Tuesday and head to Brussels on Wednesday to visit the European parliament and the Atomium monument.
Pitch Pongsawat, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, wrote on Facebook that he will go to Europe with the House speaker but only for academic study - the same purpose given by Virot Ali, an academic from the faculty of political science. Pitch appears on the name list as a columnist from the Kom Chad Leuk newspaper, but said he was participating not as a columnist but as a scholar of governmental affairs.
"I took a leave of absence and informed my office about the trip,," he said.
As an academic he will gather data about the British state of affairs as well as the country's press, city and parliament, he said. He would go to see the soccer matches on the weekend, he said, adding that the football programme was supported by Siam Sport newspaper.
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Source: http://www.news.thethailandlinks.com/2012/09/21/somsak-considers-ending-europe-junket-early/
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