This month marks a year since the military took over the reins of government. According to its roadmap, the military has a few more months before it hands power back to an elected government. It will then be up to the new government to complete the reforms initiated over the past year.
Although the military exercises power through the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), the reforms are supposed to be initiated by the National Legislative Assembly and the National Reform Assembly. These two bodies, however, seem to have been unable to initiate anything concrete so far, spurring the NCPO to step in over the past few weeks to launch reforms in the areas of forest land, education and the lottery.
Despite evidence pointing toward clear violations of the law, the perpetrators seem prepared to put up stiff resistance, using legal loopholes that might be available, as well as other tactics. Considering that encroachment is widespread, legal procedures are slow, many perpetrators are rich as well as well-connected, and corruption is entrenched, the crackdown efforts will take a great deal of time and persistence to bear fruit. But once an elected government takes power, the work may be aborted, for politicians themselves have often been part of the problem, not the solution. History points out that any society that destroyed its forests ended up destroying itself. The current trends point toward that same end for Thailand.
The NCPO has abolished some education agencies and reassigned top-ranking education officials. Based on budget allocations and achievements, this sector is highly inefficient. The last round of reforms has created more problems rather than implemented effective solutions. High-level officials seem to be there to look after their own interests and expand their empires - allegedly through corrupt practices - instead of carrying out the needed reforms.
The Ministry of Education is unique in having five permanent secretaries and is greatly overstaffed. According to an expert, the ministry has more staff outside the classrooms than in many, much larger countries, including the United States. Without vast reforms - including reducing the useless staff numbers - to make this ministry more efficient, Thailand cannot hope to compete successfully in the world arena.
The NCPO just replaced the national lottery board last week with a mandate that the new board get rid of the large premium at which lottery tickets are now sold over their listed price. The fact that this has been going on despite the lottery being a state monopoly is due to corruption in lottery agency operations. Past governments have not done anything about it because politicians and their friends often benefit from it. As this agency is not as big as other agencies or ministries and the mandate is clear, if the NCPO does not succeed in what it sets out to do here, other reforms due to be initiated are likely to fail.
In addition to the three areas mentioned, Thais strongly wish to see reforms initiated in at least two more areas - the police and Buddhism. Although public opinion surveys about which state agency is the most corrupt have not been conducted recently, most Thais probably still remember that in past surveys, the police usually came in first. Talk of reforming this agency has been going on for a long time but past elected governments lacked sufficient courage to challenge the entrenched power of the police or had used the police as their power base. With absolute power in hand, the NCPO needs to do something about this agency before the next government assumes power.
With regards to Buddhism, despite its great teachings, substantive changes in the way Buddhism is practised in Thailand are needed. Each year, large sums - estimated at around 100 billion baht - are donated to Buddhist temples but their finances are kept secret. A great many of the roughly 300,000 monks who are ordained end up earning an easy living from financial donations and do not live true monastic lives. Their behaviour is thus largely contrary to Buddhist teachings; some even intentionally misinterpret the teachings to mislead believers. If the NCPO hopes to reform the country successfully, it cannot ignore this area.
The NCPO is due to hand over power very soon. Until then, it is unclear how many more reform initiatives it will launch. Considering that reforms take time as well as long-term commitment, but politicians often block progress instead of offering solutions, one cannot avoid concluding that prospects for successful reforms are not great.
Sawai Boonma has worked as a development economist for more than two decades. He can be reached at sboonma@msn.com.