The lingering doubts surrounding the loyalties and self-protectionism of ousted national police chief Kowit Watana have at last been remedied.

It has been tempting for some time to think that he was somehow involved at a much deeper level in the recent cover-ups than revealed.

However, the new police chief, Seriphisut Temiyavej, will have his work cut out to remedy systemic corruption within the force. Thailand is no different from most other Asian nations in this, as the paltry remuneration paid to its officers has, for many years, been the seductive rationale behind the collection of "extras" through bribery and extortion.

In the United Kingdom, benefits enjoyed by the police are manifold: a good basic wage, housing and travel benefits, etc. My ex-father-in-law, for example, served 27 years in the metropolitan police and, for the rest of his life, will continue to receive handsome pension privileges, which has seen him live very comfortably in his retirement, with expensive holidays abroad every year and even new cars. In comparison and because of it, the UK system never witnesses such widespread corrupt practices.

I am not suggesting the changes in Thailand should be that radical, but if the new police chief wants to get to the heart of the corruption in the "service", he should start by paying his officers a decent living wage, then stamp out the pyramid of pay-outs to the "cursed profession".

Sucatash

Bangkok

Inactive posts a cosy reward when sacking is more suitable

I will continue to ask this until I'm blue in the face - what qualification does one need to take up an "inactive post", and what exactly does the job involve? The "inactive" part tells me that you don't really do anything and yet the "post" part gives the impression that a job with a regular wage is involved. Could you clarify this for me?

Police chief Kowit Watana I see has managed to gain one of these sought after positions, and it would appear that you have to be a policeman, in the armed forces, in politics and above a certain level to qualify. I find this much more civilised than our Western way of sacking corrupt or incompetent officials and can't wait to fill in my application form.

Chiang Mai Mike

Chiang Mai

Seriphisut's appointment first step towards cleaning house

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont was right to pick General Seriphisut Temiyavej as our new police chief. I agree with former police chief Pratin Santiprapop, who's heading the group reforming the police force, that General Seriphisut's strong leadership and honesty will enhance the force's efficiency.

Working with Pratin, Seriphisut has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the police force truly one that serves and protects we the people - rather than one that the common folk look upon as mafia hoodlums in uniform. Seriphisut's own honesty is a start, but not enough - honesty must become the norm down to the lowest ranks - not the exception. At the same time, cops should not be called upon to sacrifice financially as part of their job; they should be compensated and equipped just as if they were in the private sector.

Evaluation and promotion should be transparent, based on job-related key performance indicators (KPI), with decisive inputs from elected representatives of the populace in the locality guarded by the officer being evaluated. One KPI must be the trust that the community being served places in the cop evaluated. Build up community relations, with hiring preference at all levels to those fluent in the local dialect. Witnesses must be assured of their safety and that of their families, and a generous share of stolen monies recovered.

We should have as few laws/regulations as possible - but those we have must be rigorously enforced. In this, the private sector can help, for example, by forming civilian squads, under police command, to tow away illegally-parked vehicles, all costs covered by 50 per cent of the tow-away fees they earn; ditto for enforcement of anti-drunk driving and motorcycle driving laws, etc.

Seriphisut: be the Hercules who cleans out our Augean stables; give us a police force we can look up to, not only during your tenure but well beyond.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

CNS could do with some of Thaksin's planning skills

Re: "Thaksin bringing his message home", Editorial, February 6.

I had a good laugh reading your editorial suggesting that the timing of Thaksin's offer to be interviewed by the Thai press, "smacks of a well planned strategy".

Only in Thailand would having a well planned strategy be viewed as underhanded and not playing the game. Perhaps the CNS would have greater success if it abandoned the high moral ground and stooped to having a well planned strategy, or any strategy at all.

Dom Dunn

Bangkok

Truth the best weapon to counter ex-PM's shenanigans

Re: "Let Thaksin talk - we no longer have to listen", Opinion, February 6.

The ex-premier will be back with the aid of the Thai media to pull the same flim-flam he is infamous for unless the current regime knocks the legs out from beneath him. It must certainly allow free press. But it must not be swept up into a game of spin and counter spin. The demagogue is unconstrained by either the truth or the consequences of his rule, as presumably the alternative government is.

Allow the demagogue to make his "points". You cannot stop him. Embrace his populist policies. But enact them in earnest, not with smoke and mirrors.

The people support him not because they believe in him but because he is the only one to put their welfare on the map at all, within the political discourse. The people know his policies are unsustainable.

But they know that all the policies of the corrupt political class are unsustainable, while his at least afford their parched throats a drop of water on the shared trip to the desert of the apocalypse that is Thai politics.

Counter Thaksin's play with the simple truth of his corruption within the system, which is the hard part, of course. Real change is required. And the powers that be have not yet come around to that fact.

Well, it is the dictatorship of the status quo or the step forward to truth and freedom. Which will it be?

John Francis Lee

Chiang Rai

Suvarnabhumi problems warrant their own section

The number of articles daily about different problems with Suvarnabhumi Airport is becoming mind numbing. I often think you should publish a new section devoted solely to airport news. Certainly there are enough stories of corruption, construction woes, plumbing issues, lack of facilities, safety concerns, etc to warrant a special daily section. Then we could get all our Suvarnabhumi information in one sitting, as opposed to leafing through 14 pages of section one.

For the powers-that-be looking for answers to all the flaws at "Thaksin International Airport", maybe you should consult the designers of the SFX theatres at Central Lad Prao. The decor is done up like an airport terminal. However, unlike our new airport, SFX has signage that's not confusing, lines that actually move, an accurate schedule display, enough toilets, enough room to move around, and no structural damage. Oh, and no apparent graft among politicians and contractors.

Ronald Friedlander

Bangkok

Critique of Friedman's market theory a 'leftist rant'

Re: Political freedoms may not flow from economic freedoms, Opinion, February 5.

I was extremely disappointed to find a leftist rant "disproving" Milton Friedman's contention that free market capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom in your newspaper. The author, Pranab Bardhan, from the University of California Berkeley, slanders Friedman, calling him a "Chicago boy", an ugly and demeaning way of backhandedly referencing his Noble Prize winning work at the prestigious University of Chicago. An award neither Bardhan nor his peers at Berkeley have received, I must note.

Bardhan's ineffectual argument jumps from the police state in China to India's low ranking in the Economic Freedom Index without mentioning the Rule of Law thesis ("The Road to Serfdom", FA Hayek) which Friedman was commenting on in his quoted statement: "The Rule of Law ... means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand - rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one's individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge."

The indexes mentioned are rated primarily on a rule of law basis: the more arbitrary power the government has to control an individual's life, liberty and property, the lower the ranking. They are not based on the nebulous "democracy scores" Bardhan mentions, as pure democracy can yield the Nazism of Hitler's Germany or the Statism of Chavez's Venezuela when individual common-law rights are not protected.

Finally, Bardhan arbitrarily introduces his pet socialist peeve of economic inequality to discredit Friedman's (and Hayek's) assertions without mentioning any concrete instances of economic freedom not leading to more political freedom.

His argument and conclusion are thin and without merit or substance.

For Milton Friedman day, I suggest you publish a piece by Hayek or Friedman, not a socialist from "San Fran Sicko". The middle path I can appreciate. The Statist path I have seen, and it always (eventually) fails.

Steven Haney

Hatcher Pass, Alaska