Honest bureaucrats should be praised, not threatened

The need to set up this particular committee isn’t very convincing unless it has a real purpose that is totally different from the stated objective. 

The “target” in question is Supa Piyachitti, a deputy permanent secretary at the ministry, who also heads a working group that takes care of the books related to the financial bottom line of subsidy schemes for prices of agricultural products, with rice being the main item.

The uproar is over what she told the Senate Committee on Economy, Commerce and Industry, which invited her to tell members about stories that the rice scheme is full of loopholes and that it is costing taxpayers an unprecedented amount of money.

The press reported that Supa said what she has said on other occasions all along – that the loss is piling up and that corruption is widespread, and loopholes are exploited at every step of the process.

Premier Yingluck Shinawatra wants to find out why Supa made this statement. Minister Vorathep Rattakorn, in charge of looking into the numbers of the project, and Finance Minister Kittiratt na Ranong, are demanding that Supa come up with “evidence” to prove her testimony.

Then came the news that a committee had been set up to consider disciplinary action against Supa. Minister Kittiratt denied that. Yes, a committee was formed but it wasn’t of a disciplinary nature. It was to be a “fact-finding” mission to discover what Supa had told the Senate committee – and whether the press had misquoted her.

If facts are what the prime minister and ministers are after, there is a much simpler way of finding out. The premier and finance minister – Supa’s bosses – could just summon her to a meeting and ask the senior official (she is due to retire in the next few months) point-blank what she said to the parliamentary task force.

In fact, the minister could have found out both what Supa told the committee and what the “facts” are without resorting to the complicated process of setting up a committee. It would have been easy, in fact, to just ask for the taped testimony to hear what Supa actually said. There is no need whatever to employ the antiquated practice of threatening a bureaucrat who doesn’t follow politicians’ whims by applying the pressure of investigation over alleged disciplinary offences.

Supa is no whistleblower in the strictest sense of the word. She isn’t trying to “expose” any government secrets. Nor has she even attempted to discredit the government’s populist polices. Supa, as a good, honest servant of the taxpayer, was simply telling it as it is – and as she should. As an experienced technocrat, the deputy permanent secretary is only warning about potential corrupt practices – which the premier had declared, just one day earlier, with great fanfare, as a high priority issue for the government to tackle.

When our reporter asked her for comments on the looming investigation against her, Supa said: “I don’t have any particular feelings one way or the other. I am doing my duty. Finance Minister Kittiratt is also performing his duty. The permanent secretary [Areepong Poocha-oom] is also doing his duty. We have respect for one another.”

Supa insists that she told the Senate committee that the rice price-pledging scheme was risky and there are loopholes being exploited at every step of the process because of the involvement of up to 10 government agencies.

She recalled that a committee member had also asked her to identify the step that was most vulnerable to corruption, “and I responded by saying that every step in the process carried risk of corruption. In fact, what I told the committee members was included in a report from my sub-committee, which had been submitted to the prime minister as early as October last year”.

That means the premier and finance minister shouldn’t be surprised by what the deputy permanent secretary is telling anyone who cares to listen about the loopholes in the project.

A conscientious and courageous bureaucrat who dares to speak the truth – quite a rare species in Thailand’s officialdom – should get praise and encouragement, not veiled threats of disciplinary investigations.