Two weeks ago, the Public Health Ministry had no choice but to pull its announcement banning staff from using state office resources for personal reasons, including charging their personal mobile phones. Such a reverse was understandable. The ministry received a barrage of criticism saying the measures were ''out of touch with reality".
The backlash was strong enough to force public health permanent secretary Jessada Chokdamrongsuk, who signed the announcement on Dec 29, to retract it on Jan 6, just a week later. Mr Jessada explained the ministry will review whether the ban is a suitable policy or not.
The ban on charging personal mobile devices was just a small part of the announcement's content which also banned 4,000 ministry staff from various other activities, citing the need to set clear boundaries to prevent conflicts of interest.
For example, the ban also covered the personal use of office equipment, materials and supplies; personal use of ministry vehicles; assigning officials to drive ministry cars for personal business; parking personal vehicles overnight on ministry grounds; and cleaning personal or family vehicles on ministry grounds.
Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the plan was to fall in line with the bill on the prevention of conflicts of interest among state officials, which passed its first reading by the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on Aug 17 last year.
Thailand has been trying to pass such a law for a long time, according to Mr Wissanua. A similar bill aimed at preventing conflicts of interest was also tabled 10 years ago during the Surayud Chulanont administration.
That bill won a vote of endorsement from the NLA, but was later declared void by the Constitutional Court which ruled the vote had failed to meet the lawmakers' quorum.
The present government is trying to bring back this bill partly because Thailand has to comply with the United Nations Convention against Corruption of 2003. The convention lists the prevention of conflicts of interest as a key measure in combating corruption.
Mr Wissanu said the cabinet has urged the NLA to carefully deliberate this bill as some of its requirements might affect state officials.
"Above all, the details of the such measures must be clear to state officials so they can go about their work without any worries over their conduct."
Mr Wissanu said the cabinet had sought public opinion on the bill as required by Section 77 of the constitution, yet the feedback had been insufficient.
He said it would be best if the NLA gathered more diverse feedback. This prompted an NLA committee vetting the bill to hold a public forum on Jan 9 to seek further public opinion.
The results of this forum have yet to be made public.
The main thrust of the 29-section bill is to deal with conflicts of interest in various grey areas, such as situations involving relations between state officials and the private sector, the practice of giving and receiving gifts, and also the role of relatives.
The bill on the prevention of conflicts of interest is one among three laws that the government has drafted to bolster its crusade against corruption.
The two others are the law on the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases, which was enacted on Aug 17, 2016, and a bill authorising the state to recover assets that have been acquired illegally, which is expected to become law soon.
The three laws are meant to stamp out corruption involving the complicity of politicians, state officials and the private sector.
The law on the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases targets corrupt political-office holders while the bill on the recovery of ill-gotten assets is designed to deal with the private sector which benefits from policies and projects approved by political-office holders.
The bill on preventing conflicts of interest is intended to deter crooked government officials.
The much-touted ban on mobile phone charging that Public Health Ministry tried to impose was based on Section 5 of the bill which includes a ban on the use of state property and resources, according to NLA member Chatchawal Suksomjit, who chairs an NLA panel vetting the bill on preventing conflicts of interest.
The ministry might have prematurely imposed the ban, he said, adding the bill actually requires the cabinet, the Parliament Officials Commission, the Judicial Administration Commission, independent organisations and chiefs of state agencies to first work together to draw up a set of benchmarks governing the use of state property.
After these benchmarks have been agreed upon, state agencies will then be able to roll out their own rules in line with the criteria, Pol Gen Chatchawal said, suggesting the Public Health Ministry should have waited before announcing its new policy.
Despite Section 5 of the bill, which served as the basis for the ministry ban, indicating that state property must not be used without permission, in reality there is probably no issue if it is of small value, and not for tangible personal gain, he said.
''It should be OK if it is of small value and it is used for the sake of the civil service. It is important to consider the intention. Charging personal mobile phones is not an act of seeking undue benefits. A balance needs to be found to ensure people are not too afraid of breaking the rules,'' Pol Gen Chatchawal said.
He also said the cabinet asked that a time frame be specified for agencies to issue their own rules in line with the benchmark criteria. Agency chiefs will be held responsible if they fail to meet the deadline.
Pol Gen Chatchawal said that when the bill becomes law, it is expected to bring dramatic changes to the patronage system long entrenched in Thai culture and fierce resistance from those affected will be inevitable.
For example, government officials will be banned from acting as guarantors for people applying for civil service jobs or even students applying for education loans.
"Such practices could be deemed as acts of using a state position to exchange favours with others," he added.
Bans on using state assets are nothing new. Surprisingly, the Thai health ministry was not the first public body to impose a ban on mobile battery charging.
In 2011, around 5,000 people working for Sussex Police in the UK were banned from plugging their phones and MP3 players at work in an attempt to save money, according to a BBC report.
But the scheme failed to result in significant savings. The hourly cost of charging a mobile phone is a negligible 0.0004 pence -- equivalent to £3.80 a year.
"We are talking a few pennies here," one officer was quoted as saying in the news report.
"It has not been well accepted. It must be better to have a happy workforce than one irritated by their bosses for the sake of saving a few quid."
Another example goes back to 2005 when Ryanair, an Irish low-cost airline, banned its staff from charging their phones at work, calling it an inappropriate use of office time.
For Thailand, the ban on mobile phone charging at the public health ministry led to debate about the money that the ministry would be able to save.
Recently, a Facebook page called "Devilphysic'' shared a video showing how to calculate the daily cost of charging a mobile phone. The creator of this Facebook page claimed to be an electrical engineer.
In the video, the calculation showed the cost of charging a mobile phone is just at 0.038 baht per day. Therefore, charging 100 mobile phones would cost just 3.8 baht a day (1,387 baht a year), according to the social media site.
The administrator of this page told Bangkok Post that:
"If a doctor needs to make a call to consult with specialists to save a patient's life, but his phone has run out of power, will you allow him to charge the phone then?"
But not all people agree with such leniency. Hathairat Promsuwan, who works for a private company, said banning employees from using electricity to charge their personal equipment seems like a sensible thing to do.
"Most jobs do not require cell phones. Many people just use their mobile to talk to their friends, because business associates call your work number, not your private number,'' she said.
"The company provides a phone that you could use, that is available during working hours. If you choose to give out your personal number instead of your work number, it is your fault that you get business calls on your mobile phone," she added.