The TDRI said the Thai government and state enterprises failed to make the grade in nine key categories, including honesty and transparency, management and control, access to information, complaints-handling and dispute settlement. One example was the lacklustre performance of the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) as an illustration of the country's lack of political will to combat graft.

From 2000-2003, a total of 800 cases of alleged corruption were submitted to the NCCC, 183 of which were rejected because of a lack of hard evidence. At the end of that period, 616 cases remained pending while only one had been prosecuted and tried in a court of law.

Furthermore, the use of arbitration to resolve business disputes in a timely manner was not widespread, due to a lack of confidence in that method's ability to deliver justice, particularly when parties to conflicts include government agencies or state firms. As a result, business disputes involving the Thai public sector and foreign companies tended to go through the court system, which was costly and time-consuming.

Government failure to ensure transparency in public-sector procurement spawns corruption, poses an impediment to foreign investment and generally adds to the cost of doing business in this country.

And the situation does not seem to have changed much since the study . The Thaksin administration went on to become entangled in the most notorious scandal to date, involving the purchase of CTX baggage-scanning machines at the soon-to-open Suvarnabhumi Airport and US contractors allegedly paying bribes.

Instead of taking action against any alleged wrongdoers, Thaksin staunchly defended then-Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit, who was eventually let off the hook. A half-hearted investigation was launched that failed to result in a single prosecution, despite an abundance of hard evidence. It was this scandal, which broke in April of last year, that marked the beginning of the end of Thaksin's credibility as prime minister.

The Thaksin administration's dismal performance in ensuring transparency and sound governance in government procedures is proof that the prime minister does not practise what he preaches. Thaksin made grand gestures to promote what he described as the most ambitious public-sector reform. The government implemented sweeping bureaucratic reforms, reorganising the ministries in accordance with an agenda-based structure, purportedly to maximise efficiency, and passing new laws on government-restructuring and good governance.

This reform programme, which was touted as a top priority, also proposed implementation of budgetary reforms with the expressed objective of better allocation of resources and higher cost-effectiveness of government operations, so as to ensure that taxpayers' money was well spent. The Thaksin government has also introduced numerous cutting-edge electronic services, such as e-procurement, e-revenue, e-budgeting and e-passports. It has trumpeted "reverse e-auction" procedures for ensuring fair play and transparency in bidding for government projects, in line with internationally accepted standards.

None of these impressive-sounding programmes has done much to move Thailand up the scales of transparency and good governance. On the contrary, these so-called reform programmes have been manipulated in ways that have enabled the power to make decisions, including the authority to make or break very lucrative deals, to become concentrated in the hands of Thaksin and his corruption-prone cronies.

So much for Thaksin's much-hyped CEO-style leadership, which has since fallen into disrepute. Any serious attempt at public-sector reform, increased transparency in government and suppression of corruption will have to wait for the new government.

And we can only hope that a major party other than Thai Rak Thai will emerge from the next election to lead that government.