Thailand must improve its Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index (CPI) to above 50 as soon as possible, the prime minister has declared.
With the CPI of 35, Thailand ranked 101st of 176 surveyed countries last year. A CPI of 0 means a country is highly corrupt, according to the organisation.
The country’s CPI scores were 38, 38, 35 and 37 in the previous four years.
Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha presided over the award ceremony held to mark international anti-corruption day on Saturday.
At the “Zero Tolerance” event, held at Impact Muang Thong Thani, awards were given to state agencies with the most transparent operations for fiscal 2106-17 and the province with the best anti-corruption motto.
“Thailand remains in the 120 countries with the CPI of under 50. We have to set a goal to leave that group as soon as possible,” Gen Prayut said.
To mark the occasion, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) launched a Bangkok Mass Transit Authority public bus caravan to promote anti-corruption awareness.
NACC president Watcharapol Prasarnratchakij said his office received around 6,000 corruption complaints a year and the number was rising.
“This means people have increasing faith in the NACC and the government. So far we have taken them seriously and we believe corruption would be reduced over the next three years,” he said.
Pol Gen Watcharapol added in the future a cash reward might be given to whistleblowers, adding existing laws were already in place to protect them. (continued below)
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha gestures as he gives a keynote speech at the anti-corruption award ceremony held at Impact Muang Thong Thani on Saturday. (Photo by Thiti Wannamontha)
Also on Saturday, Bangkok Poll released the findings of its survey on corruption.
It found government officials led when people thought about corruption (30.7%), followed by politicians (23.3%) and tea money (11.4%).
On what form of corruption they thought was persistent and could not be solved, the respondents said bribery and tea money (78.7%), followed by collusion in bidding for state projects (57.5%) and bureaucracy (51.1%).
A majority also thought the major obstacle to tackling corruption was too lenient punishments (61.3%), bureaucratic loopholes (52.1%) and legal loopholes (49.3%).
On their opinions on the incumbent government’s performance in tackling graft, 44.9% thought while there was some success, corruption returns and became business as usual, 43.4% did not see any tangible and coherent measures while 11.7 saw a sharp drop in graft.
Almost half, or 50.3%, also believed the rice-pledging case in which ministers, officials and traders were punished should serve as a good deterrent for politicians while the rest disagreed.