Published on January 12, 2006

A just-launched website has the ambitious goals of exposing graft and promoting better government. This week’s launch of the Corruption Watch website (www.corruptionwatch.net) is a big idea whose time has come.

The Web-based forum was designed by a group of academics, political activists and opposition politicians and is aimed at exposing government corruption, monitoring the work of supposedly independent graft-fighting agencies and mobilising public support against corruption. It looks like a ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy political climate characterised by perceived widespread corruption happening under the Thaksin administration’s nose.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who promised to wage an all-out war on corruption, has proved ineffectual, if not insincere, in his campaign against this most insidious plague with its corrosive effect on society. Corrupt politicians, government officials and their accomplices not only steal from government coffers, but also increase the cost of doing business. Corruption leads to decay in public morality, impedes social progress and undermines democracy.

The prime minister has failed to deliver on his promise to crack down on corruption. Worse, he has presided over an administration whose members and/or their families have been linked to numerous corruption scandals, cases of blatant conflicts of interest and unconscionable practices of cronyism. In addition to traditional bribe-taking and pilfering of public funds, corruption takes the form of graft, in which government policies are rigged to favour powerful politicians, their families, their business associates or certain interest groups.

The Thaksin government is widely believed to be behind moves to undermine the country’s leading anti-corruption agencies, including the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) and the Office of the Auditor-General. His government is also responsible for a systematic roll-back of media freedoms and forms of freedom of expression. Government critics, freethinking journalists and independent academics have been gagged, deprived of air time on state-owned media and intimidated into submission.

Corruption Watch can play a proactive role in educating the public about the need to eliminate corruption as a forum for exchanging information on specific cases of corruption or general ideas on anti-corruption strategies. It can also play a supplementary role in disseminating facts and information on corruption as a way to get around government attempts to suppress voices of dissent.

Corruption Watch’s founding members include outspoken government critics like Auditor-General Jaruvan Maintaka, former NCCC secretary-general Klanarong Chanthik, Democrat MP Alongkorn Pollabutr, Chat Thai MP Chuwit Kamolvisit, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, Warakorn Samkoses, Narong Piriya-anek, Nirand Pithakwatchara, Weera Somkwamkid, Totrakul Yomnak and Kaljanee Wallayasewi.

These anti-corruption advocates have agreed to divide their duties in accordance with personal skill and expertise. For example, Jaruvan and Klanarong, who are familiar with the workings of anti-corruption agencies, are in charge of verifying information and screening whistleblower tips-off. Academics, including economists and political scientists, will contribute articles to the website and give lectures to raise public awareness of corruption and what ordinary citizens can do to reduce it in politics, as well as in society at large. Totrakul, president of the Engineering Institute of Thailand, has been tapped to provide useful background information on corruption involving infrastructure projects and help the public make sense of complicated and highly technical albeit relevant data.

Although there are opposition politicians among the founders of Corruption Watch, the forum must see to it that it remains non-partisan and provides information that is backed by concrete, verifiable evidence.

Corruption Watch should be promoted as a forum for promoting social networking among upright and law-abiding citizens everywhere. This will not only expose corruption and help punish the corrupters, but should also honouring citizens who play their part, whether big or small, in their professional career with honesty and integrity. Only by involving citizens from all walks of life can our society, which is rooted in the corruption-prone patronage system of relationships, reduce, if not rid itself of, all forms of corruption.

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