The decades of rot and wrongdoing are starting to emerge at the Ministry of Education. Dozens of cases of greed and conspiracies to defraud children and the nation have been exposed. Up until now, the minister, his bureaucrats and the government have been silent or even engaged in cover-ups.
This exposure of venal graft at the most heavily funded ministry must proceed openly and without favour, or this government's already shaky claims to be fighting corruption will collapse.
As this newspaper reported on Monday, a special investigator is on the Ministry of Education's case. Lt Gen Kosol Prathumchart, officially an adviser to the minister, has details on "more than 50 graft cases" inside the bureaucracy. While there are different types of cases, Lt Gen Kosol has found that the most common is a "top-down" corruption. That means senior bureaucrats organise a conspiracy that embezzles or steals taxpayer-provided equipment, facilities and funds, with all members of the gang collecting a portion of the ill-gotten gains.
