Hats off to the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand (ACT) for its combination request-rebuke over the country's two biggest cases of graft. This group quite properly took the National Anti-Corruption Commission to task. The NACC has fulfilled neither its duty to the constitution nor its obligation to the public. It has convinced everyone it is dragging its collective feet on the cases, on purpose. ACT is quite properly calling the NACC to act more responsibly.
The two high-profile alleged corruption cases involve the current first Deputy Prime Minister, Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, and the former police chief, Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang. Gen Prawit has been officially "under investigation" over a collection of high-priced wristwatches and jewellery seen in his possession, and worth well over US$1 million. Pol Gen Somyot is directly tied up in a probe into a nasty case that involves child sex, sex trafficking and a loan of 300 million baht.
The two cases aren't legally related. ACT linked them because they have other commonality. Both involve public figures of high visibility. Both spent their careers in public service, yet emerged as extremely well off. As ACT's every sentence of its Sunday criticism implied, it seems to the public as if the cases of Gen Prawit and Pol Gen Somyot involve figures too big to criticise, too important to indict.
