Thailand's National Counter-Corruption Commission Seen as Unproductive by Phairath Khampha 31 December 2001 Insiders said Thailand's NCCC was rife with corruption. A Thai civil activist slammed the National Counter Corruption Commission on December 9, 2001 and said it was not only unproductive but also selective. In a seminar to mark the anti-graft agency's second anniversary, Veera Somkwamid of the Democracy Confederation said the agency was a big disappointment. "There has never been a single ruling in cases involving unusual wealth among the country's elite. The case of Maj-Gen Sanan Kachornprasart is not counted because it was initiated by the public, which kept pressure on the agency," he said. Mr Veera accused the agency of being selective in the cases it handled and shifting the workload to staff who already had their hands full so that the cases could not be handled properly. "It will keep cases it wants to do, such as the prime minister's wealth concealment trial, but will be less efficient with other cases like forest encroachment," he said. "In this way there is no real investigation, just a lot of obfuscation." He also said that the agency, set up in line with the constitution, could not be pro-active as it failed to break free from the bureaucratic system. The NCCC was upgraded from the state-supervised Counter Corruption Commission. The activist said he received complaints from insiders about abuse of authority, nepotism and favouritism. "How can it fight crooks when it is rife with corruption," he asked. Uawong Wongthonglueng, an NCCC staff in charge of complaints, defended the agency. He said it handled up to 4,000 complaints each year, not to mention routine examinations of assets of government officials and political office holders. But Mr Uawong proposed priorities be set and organisations known for graft and corruption be tackled first. "I suggest we find the biggest hole and start from there." Mr Uawong said the agency was honest in its lack of efficiency and transparent people were just not smart enough to catch the crooks who seemed to be smarter than those perpetrating the illegal and corrupt acts. "In any process to set up an independent agency, we are more concerned with transparency than efficiency. It's dangerous to hire a scrupulous but inefficient staff," he said. But the less smarter officials were purposely hired, knowing fully well they did not have the smarts to handle the cases so that the corrupt members of Thailand's economic and political elite could be properly exposed and prosecuted. Senator Chumpol Silpa-archa, the son of one of Thailand's most corrupt prime ministers ever who is colloquially known as the godfather of Suphanburi Province, suggested the NCCC be restructured to separate scrutiny of civil workers from political office holders. He felt examinations of state officials and politicians be handled separately but said the secretary-general must be highly efficient. Weng Tochirakarn, of Democracy Confederation, proposed amendments to the charter to allow the public to monitor and scrutinise the independent agencies.