Corruption probe will test Abhisit's integrity

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has ordered officials to investigate allegations of corruption in the government's Sufficiency Community Project. This will serve as an example to show that the Abhisit administration will not compromise the integrity of the nine principles that he outlined when he came to office.

Abhisit said he expected the result of the investigation within a week, and the public is anxiously waiting to see whether any culprits involved in the scandal will be brought to justice.

Abhisit said his Democrat Party had assigned party-list MP Charoen Khanthawong to chair the investigation panel to identify those involved.

"No matter who this allegation implicates, our investigation will be transparent," Abhisit said.

It is welcome news that Abhisit has ordered his people to look into the allegations of corruption in this project. It will help convince the public that he will not tolerate the old and dirty politics, or politicians who exploit the public purse for their own benefit.

The money for this scheme was supposed to help empower people, in line with the government's policy to strengthen local communities nationwide. Society, and especially the affected communities, must keep the pressure on the government to find the bad guys because they have directly tried to stall the process of improving the well-being of ordinary Thai people.

Thais are familiar with the corruption of their politicians but the authorities have only ever provided satisfactory answers to the public on a very few occasions. Failure to address corruption issues has made the public lose trust in politicians. Now another scandal has erupted. Worse still, it has happened in a project that was meant to help communities according to the sufficiency, self-reliance principle of his Majesty the King.

Those who were involved in the corruption, if any, are nothing less than thieves of the people's money. There are allegations of politicians and staff in local agencies being involved in the corruption in this case. If this proves to be true, the culprits must be brought to book.

As of press time, politicians were still throwing hot potatoes at each other. Democrat Party members claim that MPs in the Northeast, mostly from the Pheu Thai Party, should have better knowledge of the scandal because the Northeastern region is Pheu Thai turf.

However, the Democrat-led government cannot deny its own responsibility. Abhisit must show his coalition partners that his government is dead serious about this matter. Sufficiency Community is a decent project with a desirable objective. Therefore, if any politician or government official has embezzled money that was supposedly to fund this project, they must be punished to the full extent of the law.

Failure to find the culprits, if indeed there are any, would not only damage the public's trust in MPs from that region but further reduce the public's trust in politicians and politics as a whole. And for Abhisit, failure will show that the integrity of his nine moral principles has been compromised.