Complaints of Corruption in Thailand Fall on Deaf Ears by Phairath Khampha 26 December 2002 Monitoring bodies not doing their job The Thai government did little to investigate the 57 graft complaints lodged by the public in 2002, it was reported. Veera Somkwamkid, a coordinator of the People's Network Against Corruption, said he doubted the government meant business in its fight against corruption. Almost a third of the 57 complaints made to his network involved executives and staff of tambon (subdistrict) administration organisations. The rest concerned irregularities in state contracts. The network had made initial inquiries and found the complaints had grounds, he said. Some investors in small power plants had bought officials and chairmen of TAOs, even provincial governors and district chiefs in exchange for help in getting contracts, he said. Grassroots people complained of authorities denying them a say on state projects and of the right to scrutinise contracts, officials and contractors. At government-level, most corruption reports were made against the Interior Ministry, followed by the Education and Public Health ministries, several universities and state enterprises including the port, railway and electricity authorities, Mr Veera said. In Lop Buri, police had evidence to arrest a kamnan (subdistrict chief officer) for murdering a villager who exposed him for graft. However, the kamnan was able to keep his job pending an Interior Ministry inquiry, which was making slow progress, because of the money he was paying to certain people in the ministry, Mr Veera said. In Khon Kaen, the Anti-Money Laundering Office found officials at a drug rehabilitation centre were corrupt and asked the Public Health Ministry to take action, but nothing had been done, he said. Mr Veera threatened to seek the impeachment of ministers if they remained indifferent. Members of monitoring bodies would not be spared either. Mr Veera gave AMLO and the National Counter Corruption Commission a low rating in their fight against corruption. AMLO had agreed to investigate only one of several graft cases sent by the network while NCCC accepted none of them, including an unusual wealth complaint against former interior minister Sanan Kachornprasart, he said. ``Monitoring bodies do not care. AMLO is interested only in checking the financial records of journalists who expose corruption. The NCCC is partial,'' he said. NCCC declined to run checks on Chaweewan Kachornprasart, the wife of Maj Gen Sanan, who reported she owned 70 million baht but did not have a taxpayer ID card. But the wealth concealment inquiry against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was a different story, he said. ``NCCC speedily investigated that case and tried hard to find witnesses,'' he said. Mr Veera said that in his view, Mr Thaksin was the only government figure really serious about tackling corruption. The opposition's anti-graft campaign was meant to discredit rivals so the party would gain politically, he said. It was only being used for political purposes and not to truly root out this social evil that was destroying Thailand economically and socially.