Bangkok Post: 26/08/08
Without ethics, there simply is no hope
Last week the gloves came off between the Finance Minister and his Shadow (me). This has nothing to do with the success of our boxers in Beijing (though when is it that we will win two golds?) but more because in my opinion the Minister crossed the line into the indefensible. Queensbury Rules just will not do with this man.
As he said himself in Parliament, unless and until the jail door is slammed shut, everything is to be considered decent and acceptable.
I am, of course, referring to the political interference in the appointments of the Bank of Thailand (BoT) and the Securities Commission (SEC) Boards as well as the subsequent Stock Exchange Board appointments. All stuffed with questionable individuals chosen by even more questionable political cronies who, I believe, are mostly either illegally conflicted or are individuals facing charges of corruption against the State. All this is compounded by a Cabinet resolution during the week to appoint a crony to the board of the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) the same crony who was chairman of SC Asset, the Shinawatra property company in the middle of perhaps the biggest outstanding criminal charge against the ex-prime minister a charge filed by, wait for it, the DSI, of course.
Moreover, the Office of the Attorney-General will not file charges yet the OAG wants more evidence from the DSI and the SEC. Is the attorney-general now more or less likely to receive cooperation?
I wish I could just move on.
I feel like I've been working these cases for most of my political career so far. I so look forward to the day when we can open a newspaper and not have to read about the ex-prime minister again.
I and, I am sure, most of the readers of this newspaper are fed up with the fact that we cannot move on. The trouble is, of course, we either let them all get away with insulting the lot of us, or we stand and fight if necessary without gloves.
I, for one, can no longer help it; I am trapped. As long as they chose to cynically subvert our beliefs as to what is right and proper, then we need to stand up to them.
I thought it was bitterly ironic that Khun Thaksin is begging for sympathy in the UK by citing his wish to resign his Manchester City chairmanship in order to protect the club's reputation given the charges made against him in Thailand. Why is he concerned with Man City's honour and yet completely unabashed when it comes to the honour of Thailand's own institutions?
Based on the same rationale, why is Thaksin not requiring his acolytes to resign from positions of prime minister and minister, given criminal charges against them? Perhaps he cares more about Man City than Thailand itself? Or is he merely acknowledging higher ethical requirements in the UK compared with Thailand?
Indeed, the Finance Minister said in response to my challenge to him last week in Parliament that we must not use individual beliefs to judge what is right and that we must simply abide by the law.
Putting aside the fact that he seems not to be bothered by his boss running away from justice to London, I cannot accept that kind of rationalisation from someone who is a leader of our country.
After all, what is the law if not an attempt to frame our collective beliefs of acceptable, ethical behaviour into civil code?
While one may argue about the existence of absolute rights and wrongs, one cannot argue that laws cannot cover every aspect of proper ethical behaviour.
In short, the Finance Minister is asking us to suspend our ethics and merely resort to conforming with the law. That is not the kind of leadership Thailand needs.
I would indeed argue that above all, what we need today is not more crowd pleasing policies, but leaders setting solid examples of good behaviour. I am not even being simply righteous I have absolutely no doubt that it would be good business.
What is the fundamental problem of our economy today? It is ``trust'' and through that, confidence. I am stating the obvious that through confidence comes investment, consumption and everything that goes towards making our economy vibrant.
The fact that our Finance Minister chooses to ignore this means that we have no chance and I mean it absolutely we have no chance of doing better than the cyclical movements of the prices of our exports allow us.
I've just heard a report that a very well-known multinational had decided to co-invest with a local company chiefly because it learnt that, in spite of all the opportunities, the local company had treated them with exemplary fairness. How many international firms had come to me when I was an investment banker asking if I could introduce them to Siam Cement? Was it because Siam Cement followed the law? Sure, but much more than that, they knew of the company's reputation for high ethical standards meaning that even if there was no law, Siam Cement could be expected to do the right thing. This meant Siam Cement always had first choice of all the best potential partners. As I said, it's good business.
The Finance Minister also spoke of ``Rights''. He was saying that the individuals he chose for these top positions have the right to be selected because they have not yet been conclusively proven guilty. Again, this is disingenuous. They may have rights, but the Minister has Duty. He has the duty to protect the institutions that he oversees to ensure that they continue to be respected and trusted so that they can perform the role expected of them. He needs to understand the concept of the greater good. It is not as if he has to choose the people he does there are plenty of equally capable individuals whose appointment would not tarnish the reputation of the institutions.
All this is particularly sad when one considers that both the Bank of Thailand and the SEC have regulations that would bar those appointed to their boards (through the Minister's process) from having anything to do with the companies that these two institutions regulate.
How do you answer to that? If I didn't miss-hear him, I think the Minister is actually suggesting that these regulations be amended.
He even blamed the whole problem on the Constitution!
I meet people in the world of finance and banking who ask me if there is anything that can be done. The answer is, at the first instance, that we need to alert the public as to what is going on.
However, with this administration, this will achieve little as there is no sense of shame. We are dealing with a political party which has promised to vote back the Prime Minister if he is to be forced to step down as a result of a potential ruling of conflict of interest in his TV cooking show.
As I mentioned earlier, short of putting them behind bars, there appears to be no stopping them, at least not until there is another general election, and until then, we may also need to throw away the key.
Korn Chatikavanij