Crying wolf harms fight against graft

The Anti Corruption Network (ACN) should reflect on its recent activities, which have raised doubts about whether it has been trying to unmask graft offenders, or to sling mud at political opponents.

Before the start of this year’s school term in May, ACN secretary-general Mongkolkit Suksintaranont stepped out to call attention to alleged kickbacks for student admissions at 20 popular schools in Bangkok.

In his remarks, Mongkolkit voiced suspicion, without providing evidence, about bribes sought and received.

Within a few weeks, the trail of alleged kickbacks seemed to have reached a dead end and the Public Sector Anti Corruption Commission eventually decided not to launch an investigation.

Mongkolkit backed down from his crusade after school administrators challenged him to cite evidence or else face a court battle for defamation.

Early this month, he again stepped into the limelight, blowing the whistle on Bt16 billion allegedly siphoned from the state coffers and parked in Hong Kong through the underground banking system.

He alleged that some 30 politicians were involved in the illegal transfer of ill-gotten wealth from the rice-pledging scheme. Subsequently, he revised his comments to say that the money had been siphoned off the budget earmarked for the last year’s flood-relief operations, and that the politicians involved were from both the coalition and the opposition.

He also claimed that the money might have been moved from Hong Kong to France and that the funds in question might total less than Bt16 billion.

As with his previous crusade on alleged school kickbacks, he refused to provide evidence or clarify how he came up with such an allegation. This time he said he wanted to take part in the graft investigation. In other words, he demanded state investigative tools, such as those used to detect money laundering and trace financial records, be placed at his disposal.

He refused to involve key agencies, such as the National Anti Corruption Commission, in the investigation on the grounds that they took too much time to solve a case.

The question of illegal money transfers to Hong Kong came up after a September 7 meeting between the ACN and the special administrative region’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

The ACN delegation included Mongkolkit and acting chairman Theerapat Kamkubon. But the two seemed to offer differing versions of what transpired at the meeting.

Theerapat said he raised a question on whether politicians had moved funds through the underground banking system. And in his reply, an ICAC executive made a reference to a past case that had already been dropped due to a lack of complaints from Thai authorities.

It remains a mystery how Mongkolkit was led to make a conjecture on alleged graft violations involving 30 politicians out of a short reference made to a past, terminated, ICAC case. 

When the ACN was formed, several retired bureaucrats, who remain associated with the National Defence College, were seen as the driving forces behind the awareness campaign against corruption.

These ex-bureaucrats comprise supporters and opponents of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and aim to work beyond partisanship.

They should review the ACN’s performance, because a crusader who raises a false alarm is no different from the boy who cried wolf.