BLOCKCHAIN – A CORRUPTION KILLER

Abstract

This paper is part of the research project on Thailand’s sustainable competitiveness. The competitiveness ranking for Thailand assessed by several international institutions has been moving in the middle group of countries with no chance to rise due to many factors including corruption, believed that cannot be eliminated. The government system audit was firstly introduced in Thailand in 1933. Since then, several state organizations and mechanisms have been put in place, but all the efforts have failed to succeed to eliminate malpractices in the government sector. In the private sector, higher number of coalition business parties have jointly fought against corruption, but still far from the reality. Obviously, corruption in Thailand is a national issue. Nevertheless, the technology of blockchain has been recently brought in to partially support data management in both public and private sectors. Blockchain, a modern financial technology, has been well developed. Because of its architectural design, blockchain provides not only efficiency and effectiveness of financial transactions, but also transparency and auditability. All data are recorded and visible to all connected in the platform, cannot be deleted but can be tracked with all the digital value including numbers, dates, locations, people involved. More governments worldwide have decided to adopt blockchain as a national system for many applications, partly to strive for zero corruption, including members of the Nordic group. Thailand should employ blockchain seriously, beginning with the public learning about the technology, development and implementation. The crowdsourcing Government as a Platform (GaaP) should be initiated to help define a clear strategy on the specific innovations and applications tailored to fit with the national requirements, specifically to eliminate corruption completely. It is the time for Thailand to terminate corruption totally with a disruptive technology known as Blockchain.