Corrupt Purchase of Senior Thai Government Jobs Soars 60% by Phairath Khampha 20 January 2003 Politicians involved, says researcher The illegal buying of positions by state officials in the first year of the current Thai government rose 60% above the previous administration, a corruption study in Thailand revealed. Supachai Yawaprapas, of Chulalongkorn University, said most of the positions bought were high ranking, from C-8 upward, and were obtained with help from politicians and their close aides. Jockeying for positions occurred all year round and peaked in the build-up to the reshuffle seasons, Mr Supachai told a seminar How should we tackle corruption in the age of reform? State officials bought their way up the bureaucratic ladder because then they would be in a position to profit most from corrupt handling of contracts and handling of monies in their respective ministries Ironically, 92% of the officials who responded to the researchers' survey agreed that buying a position was malpractice, Mr Supachai said. This reflected an attitude that was conducive to stamping out corruption. "Graft would be hard to eradicate if it was generally perceived as something normal," he said. Corruption often eluded monitoring because the parties involved were able to reciprocate interests. There was no whistle blowing as all sides were satisfied and kept quiet about it. Corruption was "policy-oriented" engineered in a "fully-integrated manner", he said. It had become increasingly complicated while awareness about how to tackle and prevent it was low. Prawase Wasi, a social critic, called for the setting up of an anti-corruption research fund financed by public donations. It should be managed by independent agencies. Pol Col Seehanart Prayoonrat, of the Anti-Money Laundering Office, said global cooperation was being tightened to track ill-gotten assets transferred between countries to evade seizure. If those assets could be impounded, it would cut off the money-laundering network. Noppadol Hengcharoen, chairman of the Civil Service Association of Thailand, said many clean state officials were made scapegoats in corruption cases involving political post holders. Officials faced the brunt of it because they must act in compliance with policies and take orders from politicians. It was their punishment for staying clean and/or being whistle-blowers. Jaruwan Mainthaka, the auditor-general, said large state enterprise contracts should be drafted in Thai instead of English to avoid confusion in the process of translation. This often provided contractual loopholes which put the government at a disadvantage. But this would also allow non-speaking Thais to never truly know what the true rules were in Thailand, therefore making it easier for official obfuscation of international investment and development projects, which would make it easier to steal from such organisations within the context of such projects' implementation.