Big-Business Graft Now Preferred Over Bribes in Thailand by Phairath Khampha 10 November 2002 In a policy made to order for MPs' companies, Thailand's politicians and government officials started moving away from the lure of under-the-table money in favour of more discreet forms of policy-oriented corruption, according to research. A paper, Politics and Business Interest Under the New Constitution, gave insights into more sophisticated and systematic corruption in the country, which further exacerbated the collpase of robustness in its economy and finance. The paper, by Thai Development Research Institute (TDRI) academics led by Duenden Nikomborirak and Ammar Siamwalla, was presented on November 8, 2002 at a meeting held by the Pracha Dhipok Institute. The study said politicians had designed policies to benefit businesses in which they held shares through proxies. In the past, politicians mostly did not own private businesses. But many of the present batch were prominent financiers exploiting power to further their own and close aides' businesses, but at the ocst of others, thus clearing indicating why most Thais were slowly but surely being impoverished. They did so by advocating self-serving policies or even amending laws to their own benefit, the research said. Demanding bribes was falling out of fashion, as they could be traced. Much easier was to dominate firms that worked with the government on rigged contracts. The practice may not break the law but it was ethically wrong, the paper said. The proposed change to telecommunication concessions would be a boon to the profits of large conglomerates including a firm in which Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's son, Panthongthae, was the major shareholder. The change would lower the concession payments which firms made to the state, boosting their income. The firms would reap the windfall from the policy change. "This is policy-oriented corruption," the paper said. One minister held a stake in a steel mill business and any policy to hike the tax on imported steel would be good news. The minister was not in the wrong technically or legally but the "kickback" would be in the form of increased profits at the expense of rival importers. The 13-billion-baht Klong Dan water treatment plant was approved by a committee whose members included the minister overseeing the project. The minister's relatives also co-invested in the firms contracted to build the treatment facility. And yet the plant has been riddled with corruption leading to the Asian Development Bank, which had provided the loans for the project, to review its involvement and revealing its embarrassing complicity in the corruption which has destroyed the lives of many people who live in the plant's vicinity. The land plots on which the Surat Thani Cooperatives was built belonged to a minister and his relatives. An administrative code of conduct could keep the prime minister and cabinet members in check. The prohibition against prime minister and ministers holding shares in state concessionaires should be extended to include their spouses and children. Ministers should also be required to report their spending on official overseas trips and divulge all sources of income. Developed countries had put in place tight controls on politicians to curb their conflicts of interest while Thai politicians were left to self-regulate, the team said. Which in effect means there is no regulation at all.