Study: Corruption expected to cost Thailand 100 billion baht this year

[buksida]

CORRUPTION in the bureaucracy will cost the country up to Bt100 billion this fiscal year, an expert on graft revealed yesterday.

Sungsidh Piriyarangsan said his “cautious estimate” put the damages at between Bt50 billion and Bt100 billion for 2018 alone. He based his estimate on the findings of 14 studies on corruption funded by the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC). According to Sungsidh, his case study – one of the 14 – on an anti-narcotics state agency found irregularities worth Bt2 billion to Bt10 billion, involving rewards offered to officials making arrests over the past year. (The current fiscal year started on October 1, 2017 and ends on September 30.)

Sungsidh said transgressions were committed by state officials at various levels at agencies in Bangkok, in the provinces and also at local administrative organisations. And corruption involved both large and small government projects, with an increasing tendency to involve the smaller ones, he added. “They may be small projects but the cost of damages [from corruption] is huge,” he said.

Sungsidh was speaking at an academic seminar presenting findings of the 14 research studies on corruption, held by the PACC at a hotel in Nonthaburi’s Pak Kret district. The case studies cover different forms of corruption investigated by the PACC, according to the agency’s deputy secretary-general, Wannop Somjintanakul.

“Corruption has increased rapidly because Thai politics is a closed system,” the academic said. “A big weakness is that we have no agency that truly scrutinises. Parliament and independent agencies exist but they can’t scrutinise politicians. “The country’s history and culture enshrine the existing patronage system, in which people with connections thrive. Also, law enforcement is not effective enough although this government has issued a lot of good anti-corruption laws,” he added.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/ ... l/30354747

[handdrummer]

Everyone knows what the problem is and no one wants to or can fix it. Corruption exists at every level of Thai society, from the man at the car wash who accepts a bribe to move you to the front of the line, to the highest public officials. "Patronage system" is a polite way of saying culture of corruption. I suspect that most Thai's like it that way as it gives them a chance to participate in the economy and possibly make some money.

[RCer]

No different than any other country. Just more out in the open here.

[caller]

The point about this report is that it focuses on corruption by public servants at all levels and no, I don't think that happens anywhere else (in the west) even near the level that it happens here. The cost to the economy must be staggering, not just through real financial losses, but also by ineffectual and outdated processes that cost companies money to comply with, and the only reason there is no real modernisation or cost scrutiny of such processes, is because they are maintained to satisfy the layers of palms that need greasing. If companies are having to pay, as they do, then somewhere along the line that cost will be passed onto consumers.

It's interesting the Govt are praised for introducing certain laws, but considering the size and scale of the problem, who is actually enforcing them? Probably the same people abusing them. It's all smoke and mirrors with a few sacrificial lambs, not senior or important enough, that are caught and thrown to the wolves.

When someone at one of the top tables is dealt with, or a head of service, then you'll know that Thailand is taking this seriously.

[oakdale160]

That has happened in a few cases in China, provincial governors and mayors have been sent to jail

[RCer]

The outdated processes here are the insistence on the use of paper even though they have a computer sitting right in front of them. Along with the need to pass each piece of paper to 3 different people for their stamp of approval.

However, those pieces of paper keep people employed.

[caller]

The outdated processes here are the insistence on the use of paper even though they have a computer sitting right in front of them. Along with the need to pass each piece of paper to 3 different people for their stamp of approval.

However, those pieces of paper keep people employed.

Yes, they do, but if they got rid of all those processes, those same officers could be redeployed into doing something more useful.

But it's the same everywhere here. When I was living in Korat, every weekday, at about 4.30pm, the Police would emerge from their bunkers and take control of the traffic lights in the city centre. But on the odd occassion they didn't, there was less of the ensuing chaos that they seemed to cause. But it was never questioned or challenged, it was just how things were and what the Police did and had always done.

[RCer]

The outdated processes here are the insistence on the use of paper even though they have a computer sitting right in front of them. Along with the need to pass each piece of paper to 3 different people for their stamp of approval.

However, those pieces of paper keep people employed.

Yes, they do, but if they got rid of all those processes, those same officers could be redeployed into doing something more useful.

The problem is retraining into something "more useful". These are people that are taught from the day they are born, never question a superior/elder.

No motivation to better themselves and an education system based on the idea that you will never be any better than what you were born into.

Unless you're a pretty female, then you can go make some serious money for a few years.

It's sad, but true.

[StevePIraq]

The outdated processes here are the insistence on the use of paper even though they have a computer sitting right in front of them. Along with the need to pass each piece of paper to 3 different people for their stamp of approval.

However, those pieces of paper keep people employed.

But where does all the paper get stored, there must be huge warehouse all over the country.