Academicians and representatives from government agencies have urged the next government to be more transparent.
Thani Chaiwat, director of Chulalongkorn University's Centre for Behavioural Economics and Experimentation, demanded that the government make more of its data more accessible to the public, whether about taxation, land ownership papers or ongoing fraud investigations and sentencing.
According to Mr Thani, despite the efforts by the private and public sectors to combat corruption, progress is not being made.
"Over the last 20 years, Thailand's Corruption Perceptions Index has remained at around 30 points on the international scale, but the rankings have gotten worse and worse," he said.
Mr Thani suggested this may indicate that Thailand is already working hard to combat corruption; however, using the same old procedures, while corruption has evolved and become more sophisticated, may be the reason for the decline.
The Chulalongkorn lecturer went on to say that the current means of combating corruption are very costly.
"Reviewing each tax or real estate document is very complicated and time-consuming, even for me as an economic academician," he said, adding that to reduce costs in the long run, It necessitates people's participation and systematic transparency in order to allow public involvement.
Mr Thani was speaking at the 12 years of Isra News Agency event hosted by the ISRA Institute Thai Press Development Foundation at the Pathumwan Princess Hotel recently. The conference focused on the impact of investigative journalism on society, as well as the preferred government policy for combating corruption.
"Those who engage in corruption collaborate and trust one another, as opposed to those who investigate and operate independently. We need systemic openness to correct this; the availability of data for the public investigation," added Prachak Boonyoung, an auditor at the Auditor-General's Office.
The senior civil servant went on to say that tracing corruption is "not easy", because "it is done by people in suits, who are thoughtful and careful, it is done in hidden places between only a few people", which necessitates collaboration from the public sector in sharing information and evidence of corruption.
However, the general public is not currently very involved in the process, said Niwatchai Kasemmongkol, secretary-general of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).
He suggested that people need to feel safe in order to expose or investigate corruption, and the government should provide that environment by creating role models and successful cases of disclosing graft to establish the new bar, in addition to making the public aware of how corruption concerns them and attenuated their rights.
