"Thailand is living beyond its means in terms of corruption," Daniel Kaufmann, the World Bank's director for Global Programmes and Governance, said in a presentation at the local office of World Bank in Bangkok. "It could fall in terms of competitiveness."

Kaufmann said findings between 1996 and 2004 show Thailand has suffered a major deterioration in the rule of law. While countries like Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic were far worse, the Kingdom has been over taken by Serbia, Mozambique and Estonia, among others.

He said the statistics on Thailand concerning corruption were "significant".

When asked by The Nation if the "policy corruption" allegedly committed during Thaksin Shinawatra's five-year rule could be considered a grander form of corruption, Kaufmann said corruption where legislation is allegedly passed to benefit crony businesses can be described as "privatisation of public policy", "legal corruption" or being in a situation of "state capture".

Kaufmann, a Chilean national who was trained at Harvard, said reducing the level of corruption leads to a higher national income and a lower mortality rate - not the other way around. "Just having a higher income doesn't improve the level of corruption," he said, naming resource-rich countries like Russia, Venezuela and Nigeria as examples.

The 2005 responses from various private firms claimed corruption was still the major problem confronting Thailand and poses a greater threat when compared to infrastructure, tax regulations and inflation.

What's more, almost 40 per cent of these firms said procurement corruption was the most prevalent in Thailand. This was followed by bribery of the judiciary at just over 20 per cent.

"Of course, Thailand is not yet where Malaysia or Hong Kong is, but it's doing much better than Vietnam or the Philippines," Kaufmann said.

In the two latter countries, private firms said procurement corruption runs at about 80 per cent. Overall, drives against corruption around the world have been stagnant, he said.

Kaufmann said measuring the level of good governance was important and feasible and there was a need to re-focus efforts to improve governance by re-thinking some of the strategies. Frank questions about what does not work are also needed, and what is not needed is the creation of yet more anti-corruption agencies.

He urged people to stop blaming history, culture and legal origins for widespread corruption. "There's nothing deterministic about it," Kaufmann said, adding any country's leadership with a will can make a difference. Raising the bar and the cost of corruption can also be achieved, he said.

Among strategies that appear to work are collecting and analysing data. "Data also empowers," he said. A free press also helps and political reform is very important.

Kaufmann said more countries are now paying attention to political finance campaigns that are often made as laws benefit the donors. Disciplining the market also helps, Kaufmann said.

Transparency reform in some countries and organisations like the World Bank includes blacklisting firms involved in bribery in the hope they will become persona non grata in the business world.

Others seek public disclosure of assets and incomes of not just political candidates, but public officials, politicians, legislatures and their dependants.

The World Bank will release its next governance and corruption report in two months and will in future publish it annually instead of once every two years.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation