By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Apr 29 2005 (IPS)

As an alleged bribery scandal involving senior government officials and an U.S.-based company unfolds, Thai citizens will not be looking towards the country’s independent anti-graft body for any favours.

The nine-member National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) is mired in a problem of its own. It is being investigated by the Supreme Court’s political crimes section on charges of alleged malfeasance.

The NCCC’s members, according to the charges, awarded themselves an undue pay rise, which was called into question by a member of the country’s Senate. The senator’s complaint resulted in the members of the anti-graft body being interdicted.

At the same time, Thailand’s independent press may have little faith in another independent agency – the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) – to look into the current corruption scandal over the purchase of expensive security screening machines for a major new airport being built on the outskirts of Bangkok.

This is because sections of the Thai media have been accused by the head of AMLO of concocting the story about alleged bribes paid in the security equipment purchase for the Suvarnabhumi airport.

The reports about the unfolding scandal were based on facts, the Thai Journalists’ Association shot back. ”The reports were based on information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the San Francisco district court, which has accepted a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Stock Exchange against GE InVision Inc. for allegedly bribing officials (in Thailand),” the media body was quoted as having said in Thursday’s ‘Bangkok Post’ newspaper.

”The government must probe this to the fullest and reveal all the documents involved in this deal.” Kanokkan Anukansai, programme manager at the Thai office of the Berlin-based Transparency International, said in an interview.

She expressed dissatisfaction at the approach the government has pursued so far, ”focusing on the business side of the deal.” More important, she pointed out, are the ”agreements signed involving Thai state agencies.”

On Friday, Thaksin was quoted in the local press as saying that a ”secret probe” had cleared government officials of any corrupt deals. ”He (Thaksin) said a secret investigation he had ordered late last year found that no officials in his administration had accepted bribes in relation to the deal,” reported ‘The Nation’ newspaper.

”The premier said that the probe was so secret that even Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit was unaware of it,” the prime minister added.

Suriya, who is also the secretary-general of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai) political party that Thaksin heads, has been named in most media accounts on this scandal.

The government is trying to paint the issue over the purchase of the 26 CTX9000 Dsi machines, which are capable of scanning luggage for explosives, as an ”internal business” matter involving the U.S. supplier of the equipment, InVision, and its Thai distributor, Patriot Business Consultants Co. Ltd.

The initial price that InVision offered for the 26 security machines was 35.8 million U.S. dollars. But Patriot, the firm brokering this deal, resold the equipment to the Suvarnabhumi International Airport for 46 million U.S. dollars, ensuring a profit of 10.2 million U.S. dollars, the Thai media reported.

But that deal, which was stitched up in April 2004, resulted in InVision being hauled before the U.S. Justice Department and the SEC for questionable business practices, including the violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the United States.

The U.S. supplier of the bomb-detection equipment subsequently agreed to pay 800,000 U.S. dollars as a penalty for violating the legislation.

The payment of such a penalty is one among many reasons that members of the Thai Senate are reluctant to accept Thaksin’s view that government officials cannot be tainted by this scandal.

”We cannot accept the government’s version until we examine the entire contract,” Nirand Pithakwatchara, secretary of the Senate’s sub-committee on corruption, told IPS. ”All those who were involved in this deal must be investigated.”

The Suvarnabhumi International Airport, being built at a cost of 125 billion baht (3.1 billion U.S. dollars), has been plagued with scandals since plans were first discussed for its construction east of Bangkok in the 1960s. Among them were deals over land, revealed Transparency International’s Kanokkan.

But corruption has left its mark in other areas, too. State officials and politicians have taken up to 300 billion U.S. dollars in bribes and kickbacks for over a decade, an anti-graft activist charged last September.

The police have also been among the notorious. They have taken over 475 million dollars from gambling dens, 275 million dollars from an underground lottery and 8.5 million dollars from massage parlours, revealed an academic from the Bangkok-based Chulalongkorn University in a study on corruption.

Consequently, Thailand has continued to fall within the category of the corrupt countries in the world in annual studies.

In March, for instance, the Hong Kong based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) gave Thailand a 7.20 ranking, signifying a widespread presence of corruption, in its 2005 report. It also meant corruption had got worse, since Thailand had scored a 6.55 score in 1996.

PERC’s rating goes from a scale of zero to 10, with 10 as the worst possible grade.

By contrast, Singapore, recognised as one of the least corrupt countries in South-east Asia, got a 0.65 score in 2005 compared to 1.09 in 1996.

Further, the annual Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International, has over the last three years given Thailand a score between 3.2 and 3.6 on a scale that places countries getting scores closer to ”0” as most corrupt and ”10” as least corrupt.

”The airport scandal will damage Thailand’s image further if not properly investigated,” said Kanokkan. ”It can lead to a loss of confidence among the international investors.”

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