The top three corruption projects in Thailand

Are you believing that ghost is real? Uh..,u.. Yeh! Thais don’t believe their country is full of corruption. The project facing the highest level of combined public scrutiny and corruption allegations is the State Audit Office (SAO) head office project, alongside the ongoing Rama 2 Road and Thai-Chinese High-Speed Railway developments.

  1. State Audit Office (SAO) Building Collapse
    While the building itself collapsed following a March 2025 earthquake, it remains the center of intense scrutiny in 2026 due to the irony of the auditing body being involved in a corruption scandal.
    Corruption Allegations: The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) are investigating bid-rigging and the use of substandard materials (“tofu-dreg projects”).
    Regulatory Evasion: Investigations revealed the building failed due to inadequate shear walls that did not meet engineering standards, allegedly ignored through payoffs to evade regulation.
    Shell Companies: A Chinese co-lead contractor was charged with using Thai nominee shareholders to hide illegal foreign control of the project.
  2. Rama 2 Elevated Expressway (Motorway M82)
    This project is under constant scrutiny due to its “never-ending” nature and frequent safety failures, including the January 15, 2026, gantry crane collapse.
    Systemic Failure: Public criticism focuses on how contractors like Italian-Thai Development (ITD) continue to win billion-baht contracts despite a history of repeated accidents on this same road (over 2,500 accidents in 50 years).
    Government Action: In January 2026, the government ordered the termination of ITD’s contracts on this project, citing a failure to maintain safety standards despite previous warnings and “scorecard” downgrades.
  3. Thai-Chinese High-Speed Railway
    This project became a focus of national outrage after a crane collapse on January 14, 2026, killed 32 people in Nakhon Ratchasima.
    Procurement Concerns: Activists and politicians have called for a ban on contractors involved in these fatal accidents, questioning how they were awarded nearly 30 billion baht in new state contracts in 2025 alone, even after the SAO building collapse.
    Transnational Scrutiny: As part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the project is frequently linked to broader concerns about “networked corruption” involving elite politicians and foreign state agencies

Maybe it is just a ghost. It is not real and not thing to proof that the ghost is real.

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