Graft-battling integrity pacts have saved the government 6 billion baht over the past three years of its adoption, the Comptroller-General's Department says.
Oranuch Vinusit, adviser of fiscal and financial system development, said the winning auction prices of 23 procurement projects, into which integrity pacts had been incorporated and their contracts signed off, were 6.12 billion baht lower than the reference prices of 32.2 billion.
The 23 projects are a part of 44 state procurement projects introduced since the 2015 fiscal year that have been allowed to use integrity pacts by Finance Ministry.
PTT's three procurement projects worth 56.3 billion baht, Public Relations Department's three projects valued 22.8 billion, and Metropolitan Electricity Authority's four projects worth 13.9 billion are among the 23 projects.
Integrity pacts are deals signed between state agencies and companies bidding for contracts. They require both parties to declare they will abstain from collusion, bribery and other forms of corruption. Signatories also consent to allow a third party who is expert and registered with Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) to monitor the entire process, including the auction and the transaction.
The ACT has 162 experts registered to be observers under integrity pacts and 100 have already participated in projects.
To build up observers' skills and understanding, the Comptroller-General's Department has teamed up with the ACT and Thai Institute of Director to launch a training course, called the independent observer programme (IOP).
The Asian Development Bank will hold an advanced training course for independent observers who pass the IOP course.