Timely for Prawit to get boot from panel

It is the right decision for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to remove Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon — who is being probed over his luxury wristwatch scandal — from the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a body established by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to regulate, coordinate and monitor corruption prevention and elimination efforts by all government agencies. Still, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The efficiency of the committee has something pretty much to do with the outcome of its work.

Gen Prayut used his special powers under Section 44 of the interim charter on Wednesday to reshuffle the committee, which is chaired by himself and has not called a meeting for almost a year.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam was also dropped from the committee while academic Tortrakul Yomnak was reappointed to sit in it after his removal in a previous reshuffle. The 17-member committee comprises of both active armed forces leaders and civilians who are anti-corruption campaigners.

Since the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is probing the wristwatch scandal, it would have sent the wrong message to the public if a powerful figure who is the subject of investigation was kept in this regime-appointed antigraft body.

Thailand saw little improvement in fighting corruption last year and was ranked 96th by independent watchdog Transparency International in its latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The year before it was ranked 101st. The country scored 37 out of 100 points in the 2017 CPI, compared to 35 in 2016.

The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, using a scale of zero to 100 where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. According to anti-graft advocates, an acceptable score is 40 and a score of more than 50 is considered a pass. That means Thailand still needs to do more.

The removal of Gen Prawit from the committee is likely more or less to cast a positive light on Thailand’s anti-corruption efforts. However, it will not bring a significant improvement unless the committee performs.

Many challenges lie ahead for the committee to prove its efficiency. The government will also have to take serious action against corruption. Among the tasks that should be prioritised after the reshuffle is to force government agencies to accelerate their unfinished investigations.

The removal of Gen Prawit is likely to cast a positive light on Thailand’s anti-corruption efforts.

Those cases include the NACC’s probe into the wristwatch scandal. The agency has repeatedly postponed its timeframe to wrap up the case. In its latest move last month, the NACC claimed it was still seeking crucial information from companies abroad that sold the luxury watches seen worn by Gen Prawit before it can conclude its fact-finding mission into the scandal.

NACC chairman, Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit claimed that local dealers of the luxury watches had refused to provide the agency with any information about the serial numbers of the timepieces in question.

As a result, the NACC has to submit its requests regarding ownership information to the parent companies selling the watches overseas and this will take more time.

Prior to concluding the case, the anti-graft agency insisted that the information is crucial as it will prove the ownership details of the watches.

It has been eight months since Gen Prawit’s wealth was called into question since he was spotted wearing a luxury watch during a cabinet members’ group photo session on Dec 4 last year. The deputy premier has been seen on other occasions wearing a total of 22 different luxury watches.

Other cases that the 17-member anti-graft committee should make progress on are investigations involving the Rolls-Royce bribery allegations against Thai Airways International (THAI), PTT Plc, and PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) officials.

UK-based Rolls-Royce had reportedly admitted paying more than US$36 million in bribes to to THAI officials for engine deals during 1991-92 and 1992-1997, based on evidence discovered by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

The engineering unit of Rolls-Royce was also said to admit to having paid over $11 million in bribes to officials at PTT and its subsidiary PTTEP and other state officials in return for the petroleum companies purchasing Rolls-Royce’s equipment and services from 2000 to 2013. The investigations by the NACC have been delayed for almost two years.

Another large project that requires input from the newly reshuffled anti-graft committee is the 36-billion-baht procurement deal for submarines from China for the Royal Thai Navy. In April last year, the cabinet endorsed the navy’s purchase of a Yuan Class S26T submarine from China for 13.5 billion baht, part of a plan to buy three for 36 billion baht.

Action on these projects will prove if the government is getting serious about fighting corruption.