Speaking at the “Phuket Incident Commander Centre” at Provincial Hall yesterday afternoon, Gov Chockchai explained that he had been informed of the accusations, but he did not identify who had made the allegations or how the claims had become public.
“I have not received any reports of high-ranking officials taking bribes from illegal hotels,” said Gov Chockchai, who is the island’s highest-ranking official.
“If any of them do, I will force them to face the law” he said.
However, he did not clarify specifically what the allegations accused officials of taking bribes for, such as as accepting bribes to avoid being added to the list of hotels to face further investigation, or bribes paid in order to start renting properties in the first place.
The accusations came as the Jan 31 deadline expired for all operators who rent out properties for periods of less than 30 days that their properties to register with provincial authorities as part of the government campaign to bring such illegal “hotels”, including condo owners, into the fold under the Hotel Act.
“District officials are in the process of checking all hotels that have registered (before the Jan 31 deadline). After that the provincial officers will take over the project,” he said.
Gov Chockchai played down his threat last week that rental properties “would be demolished” if they continued to ignore the order to register as hotels. (See story here.)
“If we find that any of the hotels that have registered (before the Jan 31 deadline) are indeed illegal, we still need to see if they can carry out renovations to become legal,” he said, in reference to the five-year window that government allowed under a ministerial regulation issued last August. (See story here.)
“We have already met with representatives of some of the ‘hotels’ (sic) that have registered and we told them that if they continue to rent out their properties for periods of less than 30 days without taking any steps to become legal – they will face the law,” he said.
“We would like to help them to become legal,” he added.
However, Gov Chockchai admitted there were what he called “black hotels”.
“Hotels that cannot become legal are these black hotels, which are those that have plainly broken other laws, such as those built on public land,” he said.
“Officials cannot just walk in and seize illegal hotels. They need to take action step by step, and only in the end can they bring these cases to court – case by case,” Gov Chockchai added.
However, Gov Chockchai did not name a single example of such a hotel.
Regardless, he concluded, “I am not worried about officials taking bribes because I am sure that no one has taken any.”