Corruption still deeply rooted in our political life

In recent years, the apparent failure of the Thai government in stamping out corruption and the failure of Thai politicians, state officials and civil servants to serve the country honestly has raised an important question: does the lack of transparency, disclosure and moral sense still play a role in the broad syndrome of money politics, personality and corruption that keeps rocking the ship of state?

The answer is yes. Thailand is still mired in a succession of corruption scandals following the 1997 financial crisis, and these invariably involve top officials. Asset seizure and imprisonment are the two major tools to deal with corrupt crooks. What’s shocking is that just as one graft convict walks out of prison after finishing his jail term, another one walks in.

Many of us remember graft convict and former public health minister Rakkiat Sukthana. On September 30, 2003 the Supreme Court found Rakkiat guilty of amassing unusual wealth and ordered the seizure of Bt233 million worth of assets from him. The former minister was also convicted of taking a Bt5-million bribe from a drug firm. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail, but served two-thirds of his term after being granted parole. Freed two years ago, Rakkiat, a former law student, was the first Cabinet member to be convicted by the Supreme Court’s Criminal Tribunal for Political Office-Holders. The case was a triumph for both the Thai government and law-enforcement institutions.

After the Rakkiat case, more were to follow. Somphob Unhawat, senior official at the Interior Ministry’s Civil Works Department, became part of the statistics. The National Counter-Corruption Commission (NCCC), a forerunner of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), found him to be unusually wealthy and requested that the Civil Court order Bt73.5 million of his assets seized in 2004. More asset-seizure cases emerged later but involved junior officials.

At this point, we are aware that suspended permanent secretary of the Transport Ministry, Supoth Sublom, remains innocent until proven guilty, even after a vast, unknown amount of cash was found in his home. Up to Bt18 million have so far been seized by the NACC, which is investigating the case and has given Supoth 30 days to clarify the money’s origin. 

Given such high-profile corruption allegations, it’s easy to doubt whether there aren’t any similar irregularities that remain elusive and unaccounted for. What’s true is that corruption exists in many shapes and forms, and it makes some people richer, especially those who wield a lot of power.

What we know is that Thai politics and its periphery is still populated by these double-dealing, self-serving charlatans whose default setting is extremely selfish. It’s not easy to weed out these bad seeds.

What went wrong? 

We should not ignore the root of the problem. Part of the issue remains predictable: the ongoing links between business and politics. Politics ideally should be an arena where everyone can have an opportunity to improve and change the reality that we live in, but in Thailand it’s viewed as a big trough full of goodies. Indeed, a Thai Cabinet in the early 1990s was so rife with corruption scandals that it was called the “buffet cabinet”. 

Yet in the context of today’s Thailand, the buffet mentality still permeates our political landscape. It’s hard to ignore the obscuring of the way the state conducts its business, especially when it comes to large-scale, lucrative infrastructure projects involving the private sector via government agencies. Now we know that a high-ranking official of a big ministry, who has a monthly salary of around Bt60,000, could not have had millions of baht stashed in his home over the past few years.

While it’s “puzzling” how a powerful official could have amassed such wealth over a period of time without anyone taking notice, it’s worth pointing out the ugly face of Thai corruption. There’s no denying that corruption involving public officials wouldn’t be possible without the cover provided by a cloud that obscures the actual nature of business dealings, some of which are concluded with a handshake without review by proper regulatory bodies. This reminds us of the culture of bypassing formal processes at some government organisations where management accountability is spotty at best. This is another form of money politics that links the political and business cliques, where political clout and business relations are to the detriment of prudent regulation.

The cloud keeps hovering because of the lack of transparency and disclosure, and it undermines Thailand’s political advancement. In no position to endure more internal shocks, Thailand badly needs a political system that is more open and less obscure. But to achieve that, it needs to salvage the integrity of its politicians and public officials, and seriously rethink its counter-corruption measures so that transparency and disclosure are in place.