Anti-graft agencies 'fall short'

Anti-graft agencies 'fall short'

Current practices use favours, not money

Anti-corruption agencies have fallen behind in their fight against corruption during the past decade, according to the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC).

Prayong Preeyajit, secretary-general of the PACC, said over the past 10 years corruption has become rife with those involved using more complicated methods.

While graft in the past largely involved money for power or the buying of positions, current practices do not require payments, he said.

Instead, people now work to serve the interests of other corrupt individuals, not the public, and this form of corruption has caused far more damage, said the PACC chief.

"Those who want positions don't have to pay. They are required to return favours by working and serving the interests [of their group]. The budgets and funds are allocated for exploitation," he said.

Mr Prayong said efforts to stamp out corruption have failed so far due to a lack of cooperation between agencies concerned. However, he expressed confidence that things are likely to improve in the future as the agencies have now realised their faults.

According to Mr Prayong, the PACC has been assigned to assess transparency and good governance in the public sector and this is expected to make state agencies refrain from misconduct.

Sansern Poljiak, secretary-general of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), said anti-corruption efforts have been hampered in part because the agencies responsible lack independence.

He said the anti-corruption agencies are also weakened by budget cuts made by politicians.

Mr Sansern agreed with the PACC chief that the fight against corruption has become complicated.

"Lately, it is about policy-oriented corruption and conflicts of interest," he noted.

The NACC chief proposed that a special court should be established to handle corruption-related cases. 

"Corruption cases are usually time consuming. People think those who are corrupt are not punished," he said.

Mr Sansern also said the NACC should be encouraged to directly file cases with the court, instead of through the public prosecutor, to speed up the process.

Mr Prayong and Mr Sansern were speaking at a seminar about corruption in the bureaucratic system which was organised to mark the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the NACC.

A number of proposals were raised at the seminar to better address graft. Among them was that corruption cases should not have a statute of limitations.

Auditor-general Pisit Leelavachiropas said that anti-corruption agencies are not getting enough financial support to do their work.

His office, for example, faces constant budget cuts.

"We are the watchdog but our requests to hire more officials to investigate are usually turned down," he said.

According to Mr Pisit, the Office of the Auditor-General is doing all it can to protect state officials who provide information about corrupt practices. 

Meanwhile, research presented at the seminar showed that the Land Department is deemed "the most corrupt" state agency, followed by the police.

The research was conducted on 6,048 households from January and February by Chulalongkorn University's economics faculty this year to determine the value of bribes and where corruption seemed to be the most serious.

According to the findings, which focused on bribes paid by households, of 4.911 billion baht paid in bribes, 39% was paid to land offices, 36% to police stations, 13% to publicly run schools, 4% to transport offices, 3% to customs offices, and 3% to local administration offices.

On average, public schools demanded the largest bribes, at 11,796 baht each, followed by 10,538 baht at customs offices.

However, the findings showed the value of bribes fell from 15.40 billion baht in 1999 to 4.9 billion baht in 2013.

Thanee Chaiwat, of Chulalongkorn University's economics faculty, said one of the most interesting findings was that the bribe paid by each household decreased to 5,016 baht, from 9,722 baht compared to 1999. He said the research participants considered land officials to be the most corrupt, followed by policemen, MPs, Bangkok's city and district councils, and the Commerce Ministry.

According to Mr Thanee, educational institutions were deemed the most efficient in tackling corruption. Pasuk Pongpaichit, of the same faculty, said even though the figures showed a decline in bribes, she doubted that it reflected the real situation.

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