‘Honest mistakes’ leading to breach of corruption rules
PHUKET OFFICIALS RUNNING afoul of anti-corruption laws when processing procurement contracts are only making honest mistakes, and are getting better at it, says the island’s anti-corruption chief.
Suksan Prasara-ae, Director of the Phuket office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), reported the good news at a meeting at the old Phuket Provincial Hall on Mar 31, chaired by Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew.
Mr Suksan reported that an analysis of the complaints filed with the NACC Phuket office saw complaints about corruption involving land as the most common complaint filed.
Complaints about corruption involving procurement fraud ranked second.
Complaints about abuse of power by officials and officials’ derelict of duty ranked third, Mr Suksan said.
No details of complaints regarding corruption involving land or abuse of power by Phuket officials were provided.
Instead, Mr Suksan defended Phuket officials in their honest mistakes involving procurement contracts.
“From the results of a survey conducted in the fiscal year 2020, it was found that the cause of the problem of corruption in procurement by local government organisations in the Phuket area was that some of the complaints arose from personnel on procurement duties who did not have knowledge and expertise in supplies,” Mr Suksan said.
“This resulted in non-compliance with the rules stipulated in the law on procurement and management of government supplies without any fraudulent intent and as a channel for the authority to use as a tool for exploitation,” he added.
In particular, issues arose with the appointment of personnel not familiar with the procurement procedures and newly instated government officials, he said.
“In order to solve the problem of corruption complaints in procurement, the NACC Office in Phuket conducted training to provide knowledge and precautions in the performance of supplies,” Mr Suksan continued.
“After the training in this matter, it was found that the officers were more knowledgeable and thus reduced the corruption,” he said.