The latest finding showing the Social Security Fund (SSF) purchased the SKYY9 building in Bangkok at double the market value has put a huge question mark over the governance of the country's biggest pension fund.
The preliminary fact-finding mission confirmed the SKYY9 Centre on Rama IX Road was worth about 3 billion baht at the time it was bought between 2022 and 2023.
However, the SSF purchased it for 7 billion baht in 2022 when Suchart Chomklin was labour minister under the former administration of Prayut Chan-o-cha.
The policies of the SSF are proposed by its secretariat office, known as the Social Security Office (SSO), which falls under the Ministry of Labour. In major investment cases like this one, the SSO hires a professional asset management firm to appraise the property value and give advice on the investment.
Eventually, members of the SSF board made the final decision on this investment. Needless to say, some politicians and relatives are accused of being involved in this pricey deal.
Despite there being clear irregularities in this case, the public, and especially members of the SSF, will have to wait for the arm of justice to complete its work.
Early this week, Labour Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn conceded the official investigation would be laborious and time-consuming. He said the challenge now is finding a neutral and credible chairman to lead the probe.
But that might not be what the over 24 million members of the SSF want to hear.
Lest we forget, the SSF has allocated a substantial annual budget for its secretariat office for administration, as well as financial and performance audits, to make sure the fund is handled by the Social Security Office (SSO) professionally and accountably.
While the public and the media might be alarmed by the SKYY procurement or enraged by such lavish spending, experts inside the fund warn that many doubtful procurements may escape public scrutiny.
The SKYY9 deal would have stayed off the radar if lawmakers from the People's Party (PP), notably MPs Rukchanok Srinork and Sahaswat Khoomkhong, had not exposed it.
Indeed, the reports of irregularities at the SSF only entered the public domain last year. Previously, the SSF as well as its secretariat office were known as a de facto twilight zone with decision-making handled by officials, politicians and members of the board who are appointed.
The wind of change came in 2023 when the SSF held an election to select board members for the first time in three decades since the fund was established. Most of the new board members come from a progressive group aligned with the People's Party.
These new board members have helped to deliver the SSF's information to the public and the media.
To make the SSF and its secretariat office more accountable, the SSF fund must be more transparent. The SSO and the SSF handled subscribers' money, but the operation has been carried out by an outdated bureaucracy.
For example, most of the meetings of the board and the subcommittee are treated as top secret. Under this opaque culture, many small projects -- such as a 100-million-baht computer upgrade for one provincial office -- have been approved without scrutiny.
Without real reform, the 2.6-trillion-baht fund will never be run in a professional manner.