People’s Party forum discusses corruption across Thai life stages

People’s Party leader and Leader of the Opposition Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut warned on July 20 that corruption affected Thais throughout their lives and extended far beyond dishonest politicians and irregularities in public procurement.

Natthaphong opened the Opposition Leader’s Forum, titled “Birth, ageing, illness and corruption. How can Thais break out of this cycle?”, at Novotel Bangkok Sukhumvit 20.

Looking back at Thailand’s corruption problems and political conflicts, he cited the rice-pledging scheme, the GT200 controversy, asset declarations during the National Council for Peace and Order government and the borrowed-watch case.

He also referred to the TH-AI Passport project and alleged cheating in local government examinations.

Natthaphong said people tended to think first of politicians and procurement when considering corruption, while wrongdoing involving public welfare and quality of life was often overlooked.

He stressed that corruption directly affected every Thai citizen.

“We named today’s event ‘Birth, ageing, illness and corruption’ because we want to analyse systemic corruption through the course of a person’s life as a Thai, from birth to death,” he said.

“We want to examine how corruption eats away at Thai lives, Thai society and Thailand. Looking at the problem through the right lens will also help us identify the right solutions.”

Natthaphong divided corruption into five broad categories.

The first covered wrongdoing that eroded benefits and rights that Thais should receive in full, including allowances for elderly people, people with disabilities and young children.

He said the Budget Bureau had to allocate funding according to the number of eligible recipients, but limited fiscal space, a narrowing ratio of government revenue to GDP and leakages in procurement reduced the amount available.

Money saved by preventing such losses could instead be returned to people through fuller benefits, he argued.

He also included alleged corruption involving textbooks and school milk in this category.

In the southern border provinces, where many children faced malnutrition, he said money protected from corruption could be used for school lunches, particularly if authority was decentralised effectively and local administrations operated transparently.

The second category covered payments demanded during applications for permits and licences, including so-called tea money.

Natthaphong cited a Thailand Development Research Institute study that estimated under-the-table payments cost businesses several hundred billion baht a year.

He said people in positions of authority could exploit excessive regulatory powers to demand bribes, adding further costs for businesses.

He also criticised electricity charges linked to generating capacity beyond what was needed.

Natthaphong said the national power plan still included proposals to grant concessions to energy companies for unnecessary power plants.

He argued that the resulting availability payments were passed on to consumers through every unit of electricity used each month.

The third category involved corruption that “eats bricks, stone, cement and sand” through substandard public construction, including projects on Rama II Road.

Natthaphong said that unless public procurement rules were changed to require contractors to improve standards and compete genuinely, construction and public safety standards in Thailand would remain inadequate.

His fourth category concerned weak enforcement by government agencies that should regulate businesses efficiently and transparently.

He said offenders could pay bribes to escape penalties, citing polluting factories and operators that avoided legal or safety requirements instead of running their businesses honestly.

The fifth category involved people using corruption to obtain rights to which they were not entitled.

Natthaphong cited grey businesses, grey capital and fraudulent civil registration involving sham Thai fathers and mothers.

He described this as the most dangerous category, warning that Thailand could eventually be overtaken by grey networks.

He also questioned whether the country was increasingly being viewed internationally as a potential operational base for transnational criminal gangs.

People’s Party list MP Piyarat Jongthep later addressed the forum under the topic “Birth, ageing, illness and corruption. What does being born Thai cost?”

Piyarat alleged that some foreign investors involved in grey businesses were paying 110,000 baht for birth certificates in an effort to secure Thai nationality for their children.

He said a birth certificate could serve as a gateway to future rights and business opportunities.

He alleged that the process involved sham Thai fathers or mothers, six hospitals in Bangkok and more than 1,000 children who had already been registered under the names of Thai parents.

Piyarat warned that the children would eventually qualify for all the rights of Thai citizens if the problem was not addressed.

He said the public should not leave officials to deal with it alone and proposed DNA testing before birth certificates were issued.

People’s Party deputy leader and list MP Parit Wacharasindhu said the Education Ministry received a large budget, but educational standards had yet to improve because of alleged practices such as kickbacks.

Parit estimated that between 100 million and 200 million baht could leak from the system if every school engaged in such practices.

He blamed loopholes in state mechanisms, including tailored textbook specifications that forced schools to purchase particular books.

He said corruption in education caused more than the loss of taxpayers’ money and carried three hidden costs that could damage the country’s future.

The first was lower educational quality.

Parit said school milk could be spoiled if money was lost through kickbacks, while textbook specifications limited to only a few suppliers could prevent pupils from accessing newer learning materials.

Corruption and favouritism in teacher recruitment could also deny children the opportunity to study with the best teachers.

The second cost was that worthwhile policies could be left without adequate funding while policies offering opportunities for personal gain remained.

He cited increased budgets for buildings instead of educational facilities or administrative staff who could take non-teaching work away from teachers.

The third cost was the effect on social attitudes towards corruption.

Parit said making pupils recite “Grow up without corruption” would achieve little unless children were also encouraged to question wrongdoing around them, warning that the next generation could otherwise come to regard corruption as normal.

He said political conflict must not be allowed to hold education back.

Politics had to take corruption seriously and operate transparently, or efforts to improve education would be unlikely to succeed.

People’s Party deputy leader and list MP Sirikanya Tansakun said salaried workers’ taxes were being siphoned off through the budget and public procurement processes.

She said private companies seeking access to government projects could be required to pay additional costs, which were then passed on to consumers as a hidden “tax on tax”.

Sirikanya identified six common procurement methods as tailored specifications, bid rigging, inflated benchmark prices, splitting purchases or contracts, reducing specifications after a contract was signed and using several front companies under the same owner to submit competing bids.

“It is not only tax revenue that is stolen.

The country’s future is stolen as well,” she said, warning salaried workers not to assume that they would escape the consequences.

People’s Party Chon Buri MP Sahassawat Kumkong said everyday life was already difficult, while the bureaucracy added restrictions that made it harder.

He described three layers of alleged illicit payments involving migrant workers, which he labelled the delay stage, the area outside the centre and the illegal stage.

The first involved broker fees of between 5,000 and 12,000 baht. The second involved payments of between 1,300 and 3,600 baht.

The third involved an illegal membership-style system requiring an initial payment of 10,000 baht or a monthly payment of 1,000 baht.

Sahassawat said these costs were ultimately passed on to consumers and service users.

He added that the figures covered only small operators.

People’s Party Rayong MP Kamonthas Kittisoonthornsakul described the alleged costs faced by factory and industrial business owners.

She said obtaining permission to fill land could require an additional payment of between 50,000 and 300,000 baht to speed up approval.

A building permit could involve an extra payment of between 100,000 and 1 million baht, while an operating licence could require another 300,000 to 1 million baht.

Kamonthas described these added costs as payments to “open officials’ eyes” so they would process applications and issue permits.

By contrast, she said bribing officials to “close their eyes” and avoid inspections could cost less.

People’s Party list MP Nattaya Boonpakdee discussed corruption affecting elderly people, people with disabilities and patients.

She cited alleged fraud involving old-age living allowances and medicine shortages in provincial areas that caused treatment to be postponed.

People’s Party Phitsanulok MP Natachanon Chanaburanasak turned to the final expense in life, which people could not choose when to face.

“Thai people do not die for free,” he said, estimating funeral costs at between 50,000 and 70,000 baht.

Natachanon also raised alleged fraud involving funeral-assistance funds formed by groups of people.

He said legal loopholes included unclear objectives, failure to disclose membership numbers and uncertainty over the amount of money involved.

Natthaphong said his five categories were only a preliminary classification and invited participants to propose sixth or seventh categories if they could provide a clearer picture.

He said the classification should help identify solutions for each form of corruption and demonstrate that the problem extended beyond procurement and dishonest politicians, affecting Thais throughout their lives from birth to death.