Phuketwan Birthday Letter to the PM
DEAR Prime Minister,
Here's hoping you had a cheerful birthday. Being PM is obviously not easy.
Clearly, if you wish to have a few more birthdays in that role, there are some problems that need to be sorted out.
I am merely one Phuket expat resident, still struggling after several years to come to terms with some of the decision-making processes in Thailand.
This is a blessed country, in all kinds of ways. But as you said the other day, there is one problem that needs to be solved.
One problem that stops Thailand becoming a better place to grow up, a better place to live, and to visit.
That scourge is corruption.
You are the first Prime Minister I can recall to say that your intention is to stamp out corruption. For that alone, I wish you many happy returns in your present role.
Beating corruption is Thailand will not be easy. People who should know better accept it as being a part of life.
That, to me, is almost as bad as being corrupt. If the corruption of even one individual is tolerated by the many, then corruption in Thailand is here to stay.
As you and I both know, corruption occurs in different ways, at different levels. It permeates some of the highest offices in the land, which is why it is tolerated and imitated in some of the lowest.
I am with you in wanting to see it driven out of Thailand. Ridding the country of such a longtime curse will not be easy. Many other countries are still trying . . . but at least they are trying.
May I be so bold as to make a suggestion?
Attempt first to obliterate corruption in a small part of Thailand. Then if that works, you will have a role model for the rest of Thailand to follow.
So . . . why don't you end corruption on Phuket, a very small, self-contained province, then make the island the role model for the entire nation?
The logic is plain.
If you can destroy corruption on Phuket then, because it has an international reputation, that will be a sign to the whole world that Thailand is taking the right path.
Make it an experiment in goodness, a bold plan to benefit the whole country.
Several years ago, during my early days on Phuket, friends took me to a local restaurant. We had a fine lunch, a meal so good that I left a five baht tip on the table.
A few minutes later, as I crossed the road outside the restaurant, the owner came after me with the five baht, calling out loudly, imagining that I had left it behind by mistake, wanting to return it.
From that moment, given the many kindnesses that followed, I recognised that for every corrupt person on Phuket, there are probably 999 who are honest in every way.
As you are Prime Minster, and you want to get rid of corruption, why not start with Phuket?
It's among the smallest provinces, yet it has every kind of problem you can imagine.
A wise island leader said recently that there were only 200 corrupt people on the island, 200 who ruin Phuket for all the rest.
Please do whatever you have to do to make the place completely honest . . .
Given that Phuket is going to continue to be in the international spotlight, what better place to start a serious campaign to change the whole of Thailand to being corruption-free?
It's just an idea. But I give it to you, gladly, on your birthday.
And I wish you many happy returns.
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In the case they want to crackdown the corruption in Phuket, first, they will have to build a new and very large jail as the old one in Phuket is already overcrowded.
Unfortunately corruption is anchored too deep in the Thai administration at all levels and successive amnesties that protects these corrupted officials and parliamentarians will encourage more those rogue servants to persevere and protect the statu quo.
Corruption in Thailand is the main causes of social inequality and popular discontent; and then we hit the bottom of the problem in Thailand and the end is not in sight.
Posted by Whistle-Blower on August 4, 2009 11:58