Three state anti-corruption agencies have agreed to work together to audit large-scale government procurement projects for any signs of policy-oriented corruption.
The agreement was formalised in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on Wednesday by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), State Audit Office (SAO) and Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC).
They will cooperate in scrutinising megaprojects using an audit system designed to detect signs of corruption.
The cooperation centres will install the system that allows the agencies to share information with other state agencies and non-governmental organisations when it comes to preventing corruption, said Sarot Pheungramphan, secretary-general of the NACC.
New information technology has been adopted in development of the system which is being conducted by the Corruption Deterrence Centre (CDC), he said.
"The work of deterring corruption in large-scale projects isn't the responsibility of a single organisation. Corruption causes substantial damage to the entire country," he added.
With the help of the new system for assessing the risk of policy-oriented corruption, signs of graft could be detected early and handled before causing any serious damage to the country, he said.
Under the MoU, the agencies will focus on analysing factors which may make a large project prone to corruption and make suggestions on how to improve transparency in the project, said auditor-general Monthien Charoenpol.
Large projects which will be scrutinised for signs of policy-oriented corruption include the government's infrastructure, transport, energy and public utility development projects, which require substantial funding, he said.
The SAO is determined to improve the efficiency of its "preventive audit" and use it as a key mechanism in fostering good governance among state agencies when spending the state budget and taxpayer funds.
"The SAO won't wait until the damage is done but will work to analyse in-depth information and use it as a surveillance mechanism," he said.
The PACC has already adopted a corruption risk assessment mechanism to evaluate the risk of policy-oriented graft in a large-scale government investment project and it is willing to work more closely with the NACC and SAO, said Phumwisan Kasemsuk, secretary-general of the PACC.
