Random checks by state officials have found most applications for natural disaster relief appeared to be fraudulent.
Public Sector AntiCorruption Commission (PACC) secretarygeneral Pinyo Thongchai said yesterday his office and the parliamentary committee for government budget spending checked 280 flood victim assistance projects nationwide in the 2009 fiscal year. They found 88 per cent had irregularities, notably in procurement procedures not in line with civil regulations.
The PACC yesterday invited related agencies, including the Comptroller General's Department, the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department, plus Finance and Interior ministry staff to discuss problems and decide if projects were corrupt or stemmed from a misunderstanding of civil service regulations.
The PACC plans to propose solutions, especially clearer criteria for the declaration of disaster zones. He said disaster damage assessment was also rather sloppy, as some officials did their own calculations, rather than involving other parties, especially local communities. Applications had to be backed by photographic evidence.
Pinyo said procurement procedures were supposed to be done every year but they often raised suspicions of corruption. Officials also found some projects named personal drivers or domestic servants as contractors, he said, meaning oversight was needed for project works.
Pinyo said the PACC would act on projects on a casebycase basis to reveal alleged corruption for action by the National AntiCorruption Commission.
Asked who the suspected corrupt individuals in the projects were, he said they includeed central government officials working at regional level, local officials and some local politicians.
Commenting on the damage caused by corruption, he said a request for Bt100,000 in funds had yielded work results of Bt10,000. And some projects yielded no results at all. In these sort of "projects", more than 50 per cent of funds went to corrupt parties, he said.