Thailand's Customs Corruption at 10 Billion Baht by Phairath Khampha 13 May 2002 Body says graft still rampant even with electronic processing Thailand's Customs Department's procedures are rife with corruption that costs shipping, import and export companies more than 10 billion baht (US$1 = 46 baht) a year in grease money and the government untold sums in lost revenue, the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) said on May 10, 2002. "Of the huge amount of government receipts lost to tax evasion, our research showed that the Customs Department managed to recover only Bt5 billion each year," said Sakon Sakondej, a member of the NCCC committee investigating customs corruption. Eleven out of 13 customs procedures involved payment of so-called "tea money" by shipping, import and export businesses, the results of a 1 million baht study sponsored by the Office of the NCCC showed. Researchers analysed information gleaned over the past between April 2000 and May 2002 from 158 questionnaires and in-depth interviews with 20 parties involved in foreign trade, such as customs officers, shipping industry groups, importers and exporters. The Customs Department's new, electronic data interchange (EDI) computerised system, which was supposed to eliminate graft by automating old manual procedures and speeding up through-put, apparently had been an outright failure, meaning the government spent more than 1 billion baht for nothing, Sakon said. "The system fails to work efficiently because of a lack of prevention and monitoring mechanisms." Running the electronic customs clearing system was expensive because customs officers were not properly trained in how to use and maintain it, he said. Full implementation of EDI was also aimed at reducing fraudulent claims for value-added tax refunds based on fake shipping documents. The procurement of the EDI system might have involved corruption and irregularities of several senior officials, he said. The government could banish 80 per cent of the corruption if the Customs Department were to adopt the study recommendations, Sakon said. "I will present the research results to the commissioners on May 13 and I believe an investigation will be launched to bring offenders to justice," Sakon said.