Independent fiscal watchdog required

It is heartening for the two ministers, Chadchart Sittipunt and Kittiratt Na-Ranong, to hear of the public fear of corruption over the spending of the mammoth sum of Bt2 trillion, and claim transparency for the whole project.

That is pie in the sky. The current bureaucratic system is not designed to check on this unusual spending. With overworked and underpaid civil servants, the chance of catching and preventing wrongdoers is remote, even with openness on the websites. If both of them want to succeed and create history, they have to think outside the box and create an independent taskforce with adequate authority to check and reveal monthly to the public the projects’ progress and the efficiency of internal checks and controls. This task force is the basic ingredient that can make a difference between success and failure for this laudable project.

Songdej Praditsmanont

Bangkok