Members of key agencies have no intention to hold on to power: PM

“Should there be any intention [for them] to remain in power, then it would make no sense to establish all the existing anti-corruption mechanisms,” the premier said yesterday. 

Prawit Wongsuwan, a Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, echoed Prayut’s comments. 

Amid public concern that the new charter will be less democratic than previous ones, Prawit has said the drafting process is ongoing and when it concludes the charter will be submitted to the NRC, the NCPO and the Cabinet for approval.

Prawit added that the NCPO welcomed all recommendations in regard to the new constitution. 

Speaking at an infrastructure construction and transparency event at Central World in Bangkok, the premier highlighted the government’s close cooperation with the British government on the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST), which was launched by the latter in 2012.

It is hoped the move will ensure transparency and prevent corruption in all government projects in order to meet international standards. 

Thailand’s engagement in CoST aims to create an air of confidence in relation to these projects by preventing corruption through the creation of a system to scrutinise government work, the premier said.

Prayut emphasised that since the beginning of his administration, all anti-corruption units – the Anti-Money Laundering Office, the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission and the Auditor General of Thailand – had been working in cooperation with five committees the government set up, plus international organisations and CoST in pushing for concrete anti-corruption results.

Tackling corruption was not easy, the premier acknowledged. 

“On a daily basis, every single task has to face various difficulties,” he said, adding that the NCPO and the government intended to do everything they could to increase the country’s pride and dignity by laying down ground rules for transparency. 

“At the moment, the government has to face different sorts of problems,” he said, adding: “We asked for people’s support in government efforts to do away with corruption.”

Despite these difficulties the premier said the fight against corruption in Thailand was improving.

The country moved up 17 places to 85 in the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index rankings with a score of 38. It scored 35 and 37 in 2013 and 2012 respectively. (A score of 0 is highly corrupt and 100 very clean. More than two-thirds of the 175 surveyed countries scored below 50.)

“This shows a good sign, albeit not sufficient,” Prayut said.

This difficult task required a contribution from every party of society, he said, adding that directly accessible information on state projects could raise public confidence. 

The premier said the media must also play a role in providing information to the public on a wider scale.