He said that any payments made to police and government officials represented cash paid in support from Patong, not corruption.
Three other Patong businesspeople were with Khun Prab at the media conference on Wednesday evening, held at the shorefront Patong Bay Garden Resort.
Khun Prab called the media conference in response to claims by another Phuket figure, Chart Jindapol, who alleged on Tuesday that a special branch policeman collected bribes each month from Patong businesspeople.
Khun Chart said his influence with Thaksin Shinawatra led to the former PM of Thailand recently posting on his Facebook page a call for Thai police to ''clean up'' Pattaya and Phuket.
Khun Chart met Phuket journalists at the Public Complaints Centre of the Andaman, a new office in Phuket City he has opened to direct comments from the public to senior officials.
On Wednesday night, however, Khun Prab said that Khun Chart was in conflict with some authorities and a letter had made Khun Chart angry.
The system under which Patong businesses compensated police and government officials for their help had been in place for ''hundreds of years,'' Khun Prab said.
''Government people come and ask for our support and we support them,'' Khun Prab said. ''We don't have any conflicts with police or any other authorities.''
Khun Chart is an adviser to Thailand's trade representative. With him at Tuesday's meeting with journalists was Weerawit Kuresombut, President of the Entertainment Association of Patong.
Khun Weerawit said that payments to authorities had increased by 100 to 120 percent in the space of two years and ''nobody can afford this.''
The extra costs are passed on to all tourists to Phuket in higher prices, a process that reduces the island's competitiveness with rival destinations.
When Phuketwan interviewed Khun Prab in 2010, he said about corruption: ''Every country has it the same. Between business and the law, they work together. There is give and take.
''Patong is Patong. Police do not accept drugs. The thing is 50-50 between business and government. They do not allow bad things.
''I think it is bad, but sometimes we have to understand. The city is changing, but the law is very old.
''We need to have income for education, good health, and generally, corruption is not too bad. But we do not want more. We should change the law to avoid corruption.
''It's like a secret. Nobody knows who takes the money. Nobody knows the exact number.
''It has happened for 200 years already. The corruption in Patong is like a ghost: never seen, but we know it's there.''
Earlier this week, Khun Prab rejected claims that the family's Pisona business, which owns and runs the Patong Bay Garden Resort, had encroached on public beach on the Patong shorefront.
He spoke out after a visit to the resort on Monday by Tourism and Sports Minister Somsak Pureesrisak, with Department of Special Investigation officers.
Khun Somsak had hoped to talk to Khun Prab, but Khun Prab was away from the resort on business.
It's believed DSI officers have since asked how journalists came to know about the minister's visit to the resort, which was supposed to be private but instead attracted a large number of media.
Later in the week, Khun Prab denied that any encroachment had taken place, saying that the resort had been buttressed with a wall to protect against erosion.
He said he was a community minded businessman who continued to allow members of the public access to Patong beach through the resort, built on land originally owned by his grandfather.
Khun Prab said he had always had the best interests of the Patong community at heart and led reforms that had made Patong's taxis and tuk-tuks more efficient and tourist-friendly.
Although he ran a nightclub, a resort and restaurants in Patong, he had never personally been asked for or paid a bribe, he said on Wednesday.
Gotta give him that, a good sense of humour ;-)
Posted by Sailor on October 18, 2013 01:04