Graft-busters urge focus on ethical breaches

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), meanwhile, has signed a partnership with an anti-corruption civil group to fight graft.

Politicians often exploit legal loopholes to create new conditions that lead to personal gain at the expense of the public interest, academics said while presenting their research at a seminar hosted by Rangsit University.

Mana Nimimongkol, director of the Anti Corruption Network (ACN), who has studied corruption at state enterprises, said policymakers often send their cronies to sit on the boards and take up management posts at state enterprises.

"After that, these people and politicians exploit the state enterprises for their personal interest at the expense of the public interest," Mana said.

He cited the example of the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly (TTM), which gave an agent’s licence to the ex-wife of a brother of a former finance minister in a past Democrat-led government. The Sapasamirt Partnership has had exclusive rights since 1999 to sell TTM’s cigarettes to modern trade outlets such as 7-Eleven, Tesco and Big C. Cigarette sales by this agent represented about 21 per cent of the total sales made by all 298 agents, at a combined worth of about Bt30 billion annually, he said.

The Finance Ministry, which supervises the TTM, has done nothing to correct this unfair handling by TTM of cigarette agents, with only some senators digging around the issue, he said.

Former ministers in the Thaksin government have been accused of corruption involving the NHA, after Thaksin initiated a housing project for the poor in 2002, Mana said.

Then Thaksin government aimed to build 600,000 residential units in five years. Each buyer was promised an Bt80,000 subsidy from the government. The project was launched even though the state enterprise did not have the capacity to build such a large number of residential units, which led to outsourcing to private builders.

These homebuilders had connections with the now-disbanded Thai Rak Thai Party, predecessor of the now-ruling Pheu Thai Party. Some former cabinet members are also under investigation by the National Anti Corruption Commission for alleged bribe-taking in relation to the project, he said.

Ten ministers supervised this controversial project, as well as three governors of the NHA, Mana said. "The project is largely responsible for the [NHA’s] debt burden totalling Bt87 billion in 2010."

There are 57 state enterprises engaging in many activities including energy, transportation, electricity and water works. As of the end of last year, their combined assets totalled Bt5.4 trillion, with investments worth Bt270 billion annually, yearly profit of Bt80 billion and a total workforce of 270,000.

Sungsidh Piriyarangsan, dean of the College of Social Innovation of Rangsit University, said the Thai public tended to look only for obvious corruption involving finances, but had little knowledge about other kinds of corruption such as ethical breaches by politicians. For example, a German defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg – who had been seen as a potential future chancellor – was forced to resign recently after it came to light that he had plagiarised his doctoral thesis, Sungsidh said.

Politicians in advanced democracies are banned from public service for life if they fail to meet ethical standards – they need not break the law, said Sungsidh.

In Thailand, politicians are considered corrupt when they break law, and even then they are often only banned from politics for five years, he said.

He said the Anti Corruption Network formed by some parts of the business community is a good start when it comes to campaigning against corruption. This civil network is expected to grow and get more support from other organisations including the UNDP, which yesterday signed a partnership with the ACN to fight corruption, said Sungsidh.