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Anti-corruption campaign is both timely, necessary
February 6, 2012 1:00 am
The public needs to help monitor the huge spending on water management
BANGKOK: -- The Thai Chamber of Commerce is promoting a campaign to combat corruption. Under the programme called "watchdog", the chamber invited the public to join the campaign to monitor any misuse of public funds, especially with regard to the government's spending of Bt800 billion for flood recovery programs.
The campaign is an admirable effort indeed. The chamber recently initiated the Anti-Corruption Network (ACN), a watchdog formed by the private sector. Anti-corruption was the issue that the late chairman of the Chamber Dusit Nontanakorn campaigned on during the final years of his life.
However, the government seems to be slow to react to the private sector. ACN chairman Pramon Sutivong said recently that the network submitted an outline for combating the corruption more than a month ago but it still received no response from Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The slow reaction to the private sector could imply that enthusiasm to combat corruption and awareness remained low in the government. This is an irony because every politician tends to raise the combat corruption slogan high during election campaigns.
In fact, the corruption cannot be done with only one party - because it involves the person who gives bribe and another on the receiving end. Private companies know well because they have been adversely affected by corruption.
For instance, corruption often stops the best person getting business contracts. This is because some politicians and officials prefer to award lucrative business deals to unqualified corporate entities who give them a bribe.
Eventually, the public will be at a disadvantage because they will receive bad service from companies that are not qualified to win contracts. And naturally, the companies will pass on additional costs from bribes they have paid to the public, who have to bear additional and unnecessary expense.
Thanavath Phonvichai, director of the Thai Chamber of Commerce University's Economic and Business Forecasting Centre, said corruption in Thailand was getting worse. It had caused huge losses on each project from the government and private sector. The average loss due to graft had jumped from 10-15 per cent of a project's value to 25-30 per cent.
The timing for the watchdog group is significant. The government is set to roll out a massive amount of money as part of its flood prevention work. While details of the spending remain unclear, there are calls from the private sector that every single baht should be spent effectively to ensure that the public will truly benefit from the water management programme.
The network submitted two letters on December 20 and last Thursday to the prime minister describing three steps the government must take to keep track of its huge budget on the country’s rehabilitation.
However, the government has so far failed to respond to the group. Among suggestions that the ACN submitted was a call for the government to disclose information to the public clearly on procurements so that every section of society can monitor the government's actions.
In addition, the Cabinet should give full authority to the National Anti-Corruption Commission to release information and set a median price for state bids and procurement to use as a benchmark to keep an eye out for corruption in the future.
But even without a response from the government, the private sector should not lose hope - rather it should continue to up the ante. One of the simplest ways to is to urge its members to seriously refuse to pay bribes to government officials.
This is because the campaign to combat the corruption will never be successful if even the chamber cannot convince its members not to engage in graft.
-- The Nation 2012-02-06
