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Bribes to politicians and bureaucrats are becoming bigger, are bloating operating costs and are burdening consumers and society, a panel concluded last week.
"We've received a lot of complaints at the Federation [of Thai Industries] that the figure has even gone above 30 per cent and is not going down," Kriengkrai Thiennukul, deputy secretary-general of the FTI, told the roundtable organised by Krungthep Turakij, a sister daily of The Nation.
The problem has led to some corporations grouping together in an effort to stop the practice but some companies feel it's necessary for their survival.
"This distorts production costs," he said.
Many companies end up not wanting to compete on product or service quality, efficiency and innovation. Instead, they focus on winning state contracts or concessions through bribery, he said.
"The quality decreases and innovation is no longer needed. All they think about is how to lobby [to win contracts]."
Paiboon Ponsuwanna, chairman of the Thai National Shippers' Council, said the hidden cost is passed on to consumers and the public and makes the economy less productive.
"This is a fact that we cannot deny," he said.
The panel, which included representatives from three political parties, also saw politicians denying that they tolerate corruption.
One even tried to turn the tables on the business representatives, claiming it's the Thai-Chinese private sector that introduced the notion of grease or facilitation money, known in local Chinese parlance and in Thai as "pae chia".
"It's you people who invented pae chia. It's you who corrupted bureaucrats," said Suphachai Jaisamut, spokesman of the Bhum Jai Thai Party.
Suphachai defended his party, which is often portrayed by the mainstream mass media as crooked, by saying his party doesn't tolerate graft and fraud.
"We don't know what to say if someone asks if we have a policy against corruption because we don't engage in corruption to begin with," he said.
If any party members are dealing in corruption, they will definitely be caught, he added.
Peeraphan Saliratwipak, a senior Democrat Party member and caretaker justice minister, said as a party member that the party has been pushing to rescind the statute of limitations for corruption cases.
Insisting that his party does not tolerate any corruption and does have a clear anti-corruption policy, Peeraphan suggested that morality and ethics education need to be reintroduced in schools so children will be imbued with an anti-corruption ethos.
Pheu Thai deputy leader Kannawat Wasinsangvorn said monetary compensation for Cabinet members and MPs is still lower than the Southeast Asian region and something could be done about it in order to lessen the temptation for politicians to bend the rules.
The crisis of corruption should be tackled by all stakeholders and not just politicians, including educators, who have the duty to inculcate the right attitude into their students, and the mass media, which has an obligation to monitor state contracts awarded to businesses, he added
