Picture: Siam Rath

 

Thailand's Whisteblower in Chief Chuwit Kamolwisit went to check up on a police roadblock in the Klong Toey area of the Thai capital on Sunday night.

 

Reporting the matter on his Facebook page Chuwit was in conciliatory mood after many accusations against Thailand's "finest" in recent weeks.

 

He was less a thorn in the side and more a supporter of the RTP on this occasion, suggests ASEAN NOW.

 

He said that the checkpoint was being properly run and that it was important that the Thai people don't always just criticize the RTP.

 

The public needed to be the "eyes and ears" of the force to help them in their work of protecting the public.

 

He said that he would be pressing the government to increase police wages so they didn't need to extort the public to make a living, reported Siam Rath.

 

He signed off jauntily along the lines of "Chuwit Reporting Khrap".

 

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Well he lost any credibility that he might have had

someone got to him. 

So did he talk the cops out of giving him a ticket?

"He said that the checkpoint was being properly run and that it was important that the Thai people don't always just criticize the RTP".

 

What an about face.

 

"The public needed to be the "eyes and ears" of the force to help them in their work of protecting the public".

 

Yeh right.

 

 

5 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

What an about face.

The fact is that for every cop that is on the take and it is usually the older ones there are cops that are trying to do their jobs.

He is right though that the police at the bottom are not paid enough to be able to live let alone support a family.

 

I am a firm believer that they should be paid a living wage and then if they get caught doing something wrong be punished.  

 

A senior member of the police should be paid well but if found being corrupt not only do they get charged BUT if found guilty they forfeit everything they have as well as their pension.  

 

Good old Chuwit, playing the carrot while weilding  the stick. He knows he can't be the RTP bete noire all the time. Sometimes he has to be Mr. Nice Guy. Massaging is the name of the game today. A gifted politician. 

 

He has a point, that police wages at the bottom are bad but that isn't what drives corruption. It is the ambitious seniors who want position, which is expensive, as well as the ones who know how much they stand to make if they push downward. 

 

I can't see him changing the RTP alone because that requires political will and this government just doesn't have it. 

 

Rolled over like a two pence hoar.

Or, posturing rather than wai.

Outcomes of Royal Commissions into systemic police corruption usually identify that a poorly paid police force is a contributing factor.  

A trade off to increasing wages needs to be much higher accountability, addition of multiple external government agencies that test and oversight police actions and handle complaints.  Also higher penalties and other punishments for corrupt behaviour.  Just increasing salaries won't fix the problem. 

 

BTW as an aside, the new video ad pop-up that ASEAN has included when reading the threads is mega annoying.  It gets in the way and when replying to a topic it crowds into the reply text box, blocking vision of what you are typing. And trying to tap the 'X' is hard as partly obscured right on the edge of screen so easy to tap on ad and be redirected to ad site.  And it returns anyway within a few seconds.

I am typing on an Android phone and half the screen already crowded by keyboard.