Published: 17/09/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
The Chon Buri monastery Suan Santidham has denied allegations of misappropriation of donations worth more than 100 million baht, saying all of its finances were transparent.
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An emerging financial scandal there has thrust Phra Pramote Pamotecho, head of the monastery, into the spotlight.
Early this week, a group of his ex-devotees, led by the best-selling author of the Life Compass series, Thitinart na Phatthalung, and academic Terdsak Techakitkhachorn, objected to the way the monk handled the finances and asked the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to launch an inquiry.
The crux of the issue is the ownership of a huge plot of land worth 50 million baht on which Suan Santidham is located.
The monk put it under the name of his former wife Oranuch Santayakorn before he sought to register the monastery as a temple, which would change the status of the land to a monastic property.
Thanadech Puangpool, a follower of the monk, yesterday read a prepared statement denying all allegations.
Mr Thanadech did not take questions. Phra Pramote was not present.
According to Mr Thanadech, the land, bought with donation money, is now considered a monastic property as the monastery is in the process of being registered as a temple.
He said Mrs Thitinart, one of the donors, asked to hold ownership of the plot but Phra Pramote trusted his ex-wife to manage the property.
Mrs Thitinart had also demanded that a donation of 4.6 million baht be returned by the monastery on grounds that the money was donated in the name of Mrs Oranuch, not hers.
Mr Thanadech insisted that the monastery's finances were transparent, audited and open to examination.
"Mrs Oranuch isn't the only person who takes care of the finances, except during a period in which Mrs Thitinart withdrew to take care of her business. And Mrs Oranuch has proper receipts," he said.
The monastery's finances are supervised by Surapol Saipanich, Thana Rujipattanakul and Kanittawiriya Torsuwan, he said.
Mrs Oranuch is in charge of petty cash payments and prepares monthly statements for scrutiny, he added.
Mr Terdsak said yesterday he doubted an attempt would have been made to turn the monastery into a temple if the former disciples had not exposed the alleged fraud.
He said the complaint against Phra Pramote was not driven by personal interest but a duty to protect Buddhism.
He called on the monastery to disclose its bank accounts for public scrutiny, claiming the establishment received annual donations of several millions of baht.
"The monastery has many donation boxes and 4-5 million baht is donated each year. The monastery has more income than expenses. I would like the DSI to look into those accounts. If there is nothing to hide, it must be disclosed for examination," he said.
He did not bring the matter to the attention of local authorities because of the monastery's wide connections.
Senior provincial administrative authorities were in the same class as Phra Pramote when he studied political science at Chulalongkorn University.
The DSI has agreed to launch an initial inquiry into the allegations.
Comment: Hang on, let me get this straight, you've got a monastery that is on land bought by donated money that was put in the name of the ex-wife of the monk in charge of said monastery. She runs the accounting and is specifically in charge of "Petty cash" and now wants her 4.6 million back all of a sudden because of a name mix-up. This, along with it's only attempted to be being turned into a temple because of this "situation" and would have stayed the same without the attention. And what's in the article is probably only the half of it. Maybe we should just be waiting for the penthouses in Phuket that his "ex" wife owns to come to light in the DSI investigation.
Source - The Bangkok Post
Edit - Forgot to add the source.