Almost two months after January’s anti-Thai rioting, heads of the Thai-owned companies whose property was damaged by demonstrators are finalizing lists of assets stolen or destroyed, and filing their compensation claims to the government.
But settling on the right amount is not going to be easy. Government officials have hinted that its plan to conduct strict case-by-case assessments is designed to combat any attempts to inflate claims. “We cannot give what has not been lost,” Prak Sokhonn, the deputy chair of the commission for normalizing bilateral relations with Thailand, said this week.
Reports of the claims made by private companies have been both scarce and inaccurate. Last week, the Bangkok Post published a list of claims from the private sector amounting to $48.5 million, many of which have since been disputed by the companies in question.
Somchai Lertwiset-Theerakul, general manager of Samart Telecommunications, said his company was never contacted by the Post, which stated Samart’s claim as more than $6 million.
“We have not yet finished assessing the damage, so this is totally incorrect,” Lertwiset-Theerakul said. “Our claim will be much smaller than that.” The Thai charge d’affaires has advised companies to not reveal their claims, he added, so Samart’s figure will not be publicized even after it reaches the government.
“We don’t want to mention the details—we have respect for each other’s country,” Lertwiset-Theerakul said.
The process of assessing the claims could also give the government the opportunity to investigate the business practices of Thai companies operating here, Lertwiset-Theerakul hinted.
He said Samart is in good standing to be fully compensated for its offices, which were decimated in the riots, due to the company’s clean financial track record.
“We have already settled all our taxes for 2001. The government can take a look at the balance sheet—I believe our business ethics can help us with this,” he said.
Most companies seem optimistic about receiving full repayment from the government. The representative of a Thai fuel supplier who did not want to be identified said the events of this week have instilled confidence in those applying for reparations.
“We don’t know when we will get the money, but we think it’s a good sign that the government has compensated for the embassy already,” he said. “We are quite positive.”
Trairat Kaewkerd, the general manager of Cambodia Shinawatra, has already filed his company’s claim. He also declined to state how much his company’s bill came to, but said that reports in the Thai media were inflated by as much as tenfold. He voiced concern that this may have given the public the impression that his company is greedy.
“I don’t want the Cambodian people to feel negatively about my company because they think we ask for too much money from the government,” Kaewkerd said.
Shinawatra isn’t expecting be to reimbursed any time soon, Kaewkerd added. “Maybe after the elections. That’s just my feeling,” he said “But I do think the government wants to settle this.”
Sak Chai, general manager of the Juliana Hotel, said that Thai reports of his business’ claim were overstated by about $50,000. His claim for damaged furniture and stolen electronic equipment comes to $656,000. “I hope the money will come soon, but I have no idea when we will hear from the government about it; we just have to sit and wait.”
