BANGKOK, 7 June 2011 – Thailand ranks 78th among 178 countries worldwide listed in the 2010 corruption perception index released by the Transparency International.
Apart from the global position, Thailand was ranked 10th among 24 Asian countries with the score 3.5 out of 10 points. Meanwhile, Singapore got the highest score for transparency at 9.3 out of 10.
Corruption in Thailand tends to get severer and more complex. The government was expected to lose 1.4 billion baht from procurement of drugs and equipment in 1998, 770 million baht from iTV concession amendment in 2003 and 4.3 million baht from procurement of CTX bomb scanners in 2005.
All the damages from corruption practices had taken away educational opportunities from over five million people who should have enjoyed the 15-year free education sponsorship, as well as construction of schools, health stations and roads.
There were 2,000-3,000 complaints about corruption on average yearly in the past decade. The number of complaints stood at over 8,000 in 2008 alone. Thailand in the past ten years scored 3.0-3.5 points in the Transparency International ranking.
