PM vows To Cleanse Thailand Of Corruption

BANGKOK : -- Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha vowed to make Thailand free from corruption, and  acceptable by the world communities to be a haven for foreign  investment. 

He called on foreign rating firms not to downgrade the country’s rating as Thailand is making headway in cleansing the country and is making it a haven for foreign investment.

“Please do not further downgrade our country, we’re making progress in the cleanup,” he said.

In the address before noon Saturday to the people gathering at the Bangkok Convention Centre in the Centara Grand Hotel  to mark the “Anti-Corruption Day” under the theme “Hand in Hand” hosted  by the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand and its affiliates, Gen Prayuth affirmed the elimination of corruption is the “heart” of the National Council for Peace and Order’s  (NCPO) task that must be accomplished when it decided to seize power.

Therefore, he said, the issue would be undertaken by the military junta seriously and to be achieved otherwise its power seizure to reform the country from this deep-rooted and evil  problem could be a waste.

He said this was the reason why the junta fixed corruption elimination as the national agenda after seeing the problem has escalated intensely and has become the major cause of widening rifts in the Thai societies and division of the Thai people.

He said rampant corruption has not only creating rifts, widening conflicts, but also undermining investment confidence of both local and foreign investors.

“We can’ t let this problem to prevail further as it will destabilise the country and thus we have to build the new society, the new generation with strength to fight corruption and make a free and clean society,” he said.

But he said only the NCPO and the government themselves could not achieve in fighting corruption, but needed cooperation from all sectors of the societies to join and not to fall prey into the hands of certain groups of people.

He said new generation will be instilled with merits, ethics, and morality, and the people will also be encouraged with new attitude.

They must now change from the culture of just staying put or ignoring this serious problem  to be alarming against corruption.

Gen Prayuth also said today would become a history for Thailand to rebuild the country to a corruption free place that could  par with other developed country.

He said some developing  countries  spent six years to fight and eliminate corruption, and upgrading  themselves to same standards as other developed countries.

For Thailand, the future remained unknown if how many years would be taken.

However he said a history would be made following the courage of the private sector such as ACT to undertake the task.

But he said the military junta has strong determination to achieve the goals with its reforms of eleven areas, to achieve a sustainable solution so that it could pass on to new government to pursue.

He said the junta’s corruption elimination task  was not to put pressure on officials.

The junta will apply self sufficiency philosophy, generosity in its task, he said.

He sought cooperation from all the people to pay taxes so that the money could be used to improve the quality of lives of the people, particularly the poor, the farmers so they  can live in dignity same as the others in the societies.