Credibility of NACC’s Integrity and Transparency Assessment challenged

People’s party spokesman, Parit Wacharasindhu, has expressed doubt over the accuracy and credibility of the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s (NACC) Integrity and Transparency Assessment (ITA) ratings for the State Audit Office (SAO) and the Ministry of Labour, including the Office of Social Security, among other state agencies.

Among independent organisations, the SAO topped the list, scoring 94.64 points out of 100, whereas the Labour Ministry was rated in first place among ministries, scoring 96.62 points.

The Office of the Election Commission came second, scoring 93.47 points, while the NACC came third with 93.18 points. The Office of the Auditor-General came third, scoring 93.18 points and the National Human Rights Committee came fifth, with 90.51 points.

Parit said he does not believe that the ITA assessment mechanism, an initiative of the NACC, can truly reflect the transparency of an organisation.

The assessments are based upon an internal assessment based on the views of staff in an organisation, an external assessment based on the opinions of members of the public in contact with each organisation and an open data assessment.

Parit pointed out that the ITA is primarily intended for ministries and departments, but the Education Ministry has extended the assessments to cover about 1,000 schools, which has placed additional and unnecessary burdens on teachers and the national budget.

The People’s party spokesman said he has tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the House budget scrutiny committee to cut the budget of the Office of Basic Education Commission allocated for schools to conduct the ITA.

NACC Deputy Secretary-General Sornchai Chuvichien, meanwhile, explained that the ITA is just a tool with which to assess the health of each state agency and whether it has any problems, so that they can be rectified. It does not measure whether there is corruption in the agency.

He admitted that corruption in Thailand has not reduced, as reflected in the 9,000-10,000 complaints of alleged corruption filed with the NACC every year.

Thailand has never scored more than 38 points out of 100 in the Global Corruption Perception Index and, last year, it was placed at 107th out of 180 countries, said Sornchai.