robbie36 Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 I am not so sure the USA should be quite so proud of its ranking. Afghanistan was ranked 176th and Iraq 178th out of 180 - two countries they ostensibly bear responsibility for running or at least for the current governments. It seems only Myanmar and Somalia scored worse. I doubt all the corruption was exclusively for the benefit of the locals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neo Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 clearly we operate in different spheres. i repeat - the vast majority of pubic servants are decent, honest professionals. the fact that you pay your tea money doesn't mean that everyone is corrupt. far from it. that is your experience of working with certain govt 'officials', my experience suggests otherwise Then for god's sake tell us who to deal with, because in 4 years of dealing with many government departments at every level from the receptionists to members of parliament I've seen a cornucopia of fraud, back-handers, embezzlement, nepitism, misappropriation and pretty much any form of corruption you care to mention, and tea money is nothing by comparison. I'm hopeful your opinion is based on something other than getting 30 day stamps in your passport at the airport. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 clearly we operate in different spheres. i repeat - the vast majority of pubic servants are decent, honest professionals. the fact that you pay your tea money doesn't mean that everyone is corrupt. far from it. that is your experience of working with certain govt 'officials', my experience suggests otherwise Then for god's sake tell us who to deal with, because in 4 years of dealing with many government departments at every level from the receptionists to members of parliament I've seen a cornucopia of fraud, back-handers, embezzlement, nepitism, misappropriation and pretty much any form of corruption you care to mention, and tea money is nothing by comparison. I'm hopeful your opinion is based on something other than getting 30 day stamps in your passport at the airport. Marty u r gonna take a hammering on this one unless u got some solid facts and evidence to back this up and not just ur experiences. i would say just about EVERYONE who has spent some time living, working and doing business in thailand will have their horror stories to tell !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbie36 Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 no, i am saying that in my experience of the thai officials i have worked with have always been beyond corruption. it may exsist out there, but i haven't experienced it in my dealings. i am sure there is corruption, but to label all public servants and govt officials the same is a cheap shot. Clearly you do operate in different fields than I have operated in. In my experience if you want anything achieved in any 'reasonable' period of time in any business field requiring government permission or approval a fairly minor amount of tea money is required. Also, if a government contract is to be acquired a payment equivalent to a fairly substantial proportion of expected profits is required. This is the general rule rather than the exception and I speak from someone who was the only farang at a Thai company rather than as a farang at a farang company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Mike Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in Thailand has TEA money in it, behind it or under it. Even the whores are based on TEA. You cannot CRAP in Thailand without some kind of TEA. Even the cop that says David was found naked in the closet of his hotel with a rope around his scrotum was paid tea money. But we love Thailand anyway!!! Marty you need to grow up!! I worked DIRECTLY with REAL government officials in THAILAND, and I know FIRST Hand they ALL get TEA money!!! You need to stop lying to everyone and to yourself too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Mike Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Dear Marty, I really didn't mean to be insulting, and apologize if taken that way. It's simply that I have a bit of experience(tons) dealing directly with government officials and I have a Thai business. They lie, cheat and steal through their teeth. It's just a different culture. same as China, India etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neo Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Marty, I didn't mean to insult anybody. I still think there's more going on here than you've discovered so far. For sure there are a lot of good people here, but conversely, the amount of corruption I've encountered in business and government is quite dispiriting. I certainly don't mean to slag off Thailand, since I chose to live here and have no regrets about that. But it saddens me to see so much potential wasted through this particular malaise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbie36 Posted June 7, 2009 Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Marty, And I think you missed the point of some of the other posters. Which is that corruption is endemic. When I last checked which was some 5 years ago, the starting salary of a policeman was something like Bt5,000/month. On that basis it is only natural that he supplements his salary from incremental incomes. In order to do that a fair percentage of that incremental income has to be passed on to his superiors, who then passes it on to their superiors. Incremental incomes ranges from making sure that bars dont close on time to drivers not wearing seat belts do not receive tickets. Do I need to explain how it works in the Land Department? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 my central point remains unchanged: that there are more than 350,000 people working in the public sector in thailand. the vast majority of these are decent, hard working thais, not corrupt government people who are taking bribes. even with my own contacts, i.e. public servants in health and social care ministries and ngos in thailand, to suggest the majority of them are corrupt is quite frankly laughable or insulting. i am not sure which. i wonder how many of those 350,000 ppl r in a job where they can abuse their position for financial gain ?? i dare say there r many decent, honest, hard working Thais working in the public sector, but experiences would suggest that those in a postion to be corrupt do tend to be corrupt !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katoom Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 Marty,And I think you missed the point of some of the other posters. Which is that corruption is endemic. When I last checked which was some 5 years ago, the starting salary of a policeman was something like Bt5,000/month. On that basis it is only natural that he supplements his salary from incremental incomes. In order to do that a fair percentage of that incremental income has to be passed on to his superiors, who then passes it on to their superiors. Incremental incomes ranges from making sure that bars dont close on time to drivers not wearing seat belts do not receive tickets. Do I need to explain how it works in the Land Department? Exactly. I myself have worked in Government in Hong Kong for the past 15 years and while I can say that we do not suffer the same level of corruption as Thailand at this time (as confirmed by the original data), I could say that in the late 60?s and early 70?s it was at a similar level and endemic. I have learnt and heard an enormous amount about the system that existed in those days and it is interesting that the same language is used as in ?tea money?; it is referred to in the same way here in Cantonese. The method of distribution of the ill-gotten gains was always conducted by depositing ?little brown envelopes? to all and sundry. Those that were not directly involved in any graft were included in this distribution even they did not want to accept it. You either played along and kept your job or you went ?against? the system and suffered as an outcast as a result. There really is no way to avoid this type of behavior and indirect involvement on the level that it exists in Thailand. Interestingly, on may occasions the bosses were not the main organisers but they still arrived at work to find the brown envelopes in their in-trays just the same as everyone else; take it or leave it. It has taken a while but HK has recovered it?s own situation and I am proud that we can now say that corruption does not affect the man in the street as it did before but it does still exist within business, that is for sure. The Civil Service went through a torrid time in1974 when the Independent Commission Against Corruption was formed in HK but it worked very very well. It did however take an unprecedented strike by police in order for the measures to be fully accepted at the height of the problems when the Government agreed on an amnesty. I think a similar mini revolution needs to take place in Thailand in order for the whole civil service and indeed the country to be able to draw a line under these issues and start all over again. It is possible it just needs the will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbie36 Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 I think a similar mini revolution needs to take place in Thailand in order for the whole civil service and indeed the country to be able to draw a line under these issues and start all over again. It is possible it just needs the will. Unfortunately it needs more than will. With starting salaries of Bt5-6k and sergeants earning Bt10k, policeman simply are not paid to be corruption free. Unless salaries are adjusted upwards it simply isnt a fair deal. It would be nice to think we could live in a world of 'ok' corruption. To be honest I dont really care if I pay the policeman directly or I get a ticket, or for that matter if a bar stays open late. Unfortunately a little bit of corruption at the bottom always leads to total injustice at the top whereby people shoot someone in front of 300 in a pub and get away with it. By the way (and only a Thai can answer this) I always wonder why policeman are so furtive when accepting a bribe on the highway.... Is it... a) Because he wants to pocket some of it himself rather than give it to his boss, especially if I gave him Bt500 (yes I know by the way). Because Thais strongly disapprove of policemen taking bribes c) Because Thais particularly disapprove of policemen taking bribes from farang as it might put the country's image in poor light d) If you are going to take a bribe it is simply polite to be furtive about it (i.e. dancing up and down waving a Bt500 note is bad form.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 d) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeusbheld Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 d) seconded, although the guy who 'took care of' my seatbelt fine just about danced up and down... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayner Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 Marty You should be aligned with the current proposal to lease buses at more cost than to buy? Why do you think that is? Why is one particular political party screaming mad to push this project through when there are 1000 more pressing issues for the government to deal with? In Thailand Marty, if people can make money, they will make money no matter what. Whether corruption, overcharging, lying, stealing, you name it. You are not witness to corruption because of what you are doing? Now for example try to sell 1,000,000 HIV kits to the government and watch what happens to these same people you think are innocent. Honestly, you don't have enough experience to be commenting on this topic. Until you live in Thailand and own a business you could never understand the scope of the corruption here. 1 person out of 1000 would pick up your wallet if you dropped in on the sidewalk here and give it back to you. The other 999 would walk off with it. That is the reality of thai life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 d) seconded, although the guy who 'took care of' my seatbelt fine just about danced up and down... that's usually a not too subtle indication u've given too much .... when they start doing footballer type war dances then u know u've truly been screwed !!! so a friend told me !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeusbheld Posted June 8, 2009 Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 d) seconded, although the guy who 'took care of' my seatbelt fine just about danced up and down... that's usually a not too subtle indication u've given too much .... when they start doing footballer type war dances then u know u've truly been screwed !!! so a friend told me !! might have paid too much but a tightwad chinese girl was driving (you know her) so i'd imagine he was just happy to survive the negotiation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakeGeneve Posted November 18, 2009 Report Share Posted November 18, 2009 Thailand slips 4 places, way to go NZ and Denmark! Thailand slips to 84th in worldwide graft index 18/11/2009 Bangkok Post Thailand ranks 10th in Asia, third in Southeast Asia and 84th in the world in this year's corruption index released by the global graft watchdog Transparency International. The Kingdom scored 3.4 out of 10 in the rankings, which range from zero for highly corrupt to 10 for very clean. Last year, Thailand was also ranked 10th in Asia, Transparency Thailand said yesterday. It ranked 80th in the world last year so Thailand's No.84 position this year means the country is being perceived as increasingly corrupt. The scores are based on perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people and country analysts. Singapore was the cleanest country in Asia and topped 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with its score of 9.2. Malaysia was second in the grouping with the score of 4.5. Burma was last in Southeast Asia, scoring 1.4, followed by Cambodia and Laos, both scoring 2.0. New Zealand was the least corrupt country in the world, ranking first at 9.4, followed by Denmark at 9.3 and then Singapore. The most corrupt nation on Earth remained Somalia, the impoverished and war-torn Horn of Africa state that has been without a functioning government for two decades. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/27591/thailand-slips-to-84th-in-worldwide-graft-index http://www.transparency.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LakeGeneve Posted November 20, 2009 Report Share Posted November 20, 2009 A good opinion piece in the Post Wed as the National Anti-Corruption Commision is about to clock 10 years in existence; Government must also play its part by giving the NACC the resources it needs and by backing its campaigns to the hilt. Otherwise it will be paying mere lip service to anti-corruption activities.Thailand needs more effective carrots and sticks in dealing with graft. The salaries of state officials and the police should be raised to reduce the incentive for corruption - this has proved effective in places such as Brazil - combined with an uncompromising will to prosecute corrupt officials. Judicial activism over the past few years has shown the courts are willing to prosecute the rich and powerful - that commitment needs now to encompass the full spectrum of politics covering the government, military, police, civil service and corporate spheres. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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