Associate Professor Dr. Thanawat Phonwichai, President of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC), gave an overview of Thailand's corruption problem that has previously raised awareness. However, the perception remains low. Today's global society is preoccupied with ESG, which refers to Environment, Social, and Governance. And in terms of taking care of society in order to achieve fairness and equality and to avoid corruption problems, Thailand is still not outstanding. According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), it has never scored more than 38 out of 100 in the last 100 years and ranking 101 in the most recent year.
Dr. Thanawat Phonwichai stated that the way that the government sector can boost Thailand's score or CPI index if the agency responsible for detecting corruption applies the same standard of law and inquiry in every case or allegation, including having to expedite case judgment. If organisations can do this, people will be aware that there are crackdowns and penalties for those who commit corruption. Furthermore, the state should be transparent when others are contacting government institutions and asking for various permits. Don't let it have a network of relationships and giving bribes to government officials.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thanawat, another tool that will help raise transparency awareness is to conduct ITA (Integrity and Transparency Assessment), which the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce has created for the NACC based on a South Korean model, by intensive tutoring on public service in order to achieve the strongest transparency.
Dr. Thanawat said that bribery is adding expenses to the business sector. Even if it is not recorded, it will eventually be pushed to the consumer. Corruption has a wide-ranging impact on enterprises and the economy, including ruining the image, foreign investors who don't invest because they can't calculate their cost, causing the country to lack of prospects for development and knowledge transfer from foreign parties. Furthermore, it raises the cost of living for people. The greater the corruption, the price will rise significantly further, while the patronage system puts political stability under strain and society will have inequality and obstruct future development of the country as well as the partisan system, preventing people with expertise from entering the system and impacting businesses’s performance.
The rector of the Thai Chamber of Commerce University stated that even thought there was no obvious evidence of a decline in corruption or how many lawsuits or damage worth, we can consider the number of complaints to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) that they increase or decrease, but if looking at the perspective of legal penalties may not see much or corrupt people will soon be punished and get freed easily, he said. At this time, the relevant agencies should be able to provide a good answer, if the law is sufficiently stringent, he recommended. In terms of social measures, he believes they assist in minimising corruption but not much. Because the important factor is more seriously making information of the lawsuit, the penalty, public relations and the development of young people and public awareness. These will help to improve Thailand's corruption problem.