The Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking (JSCCIB), representing the private sector, has done the unthinkable by daring to expose to the public a list of the top 10 most corrupt state agencies in Thailand.
The report also provides some details about the average amount of bribe money many of their member companies have paid to corrupt officials.
Although corruption in government bureaucracy is a well-known fact that most Thais accept as a fact of life, the damning exposure by such an influential authority represents a surprise bombshell that has sent shockwaves across the bureaucratic landscape.
The hardest hit by this big slap in the face is the Pollution Control Department (PCD), which was placed at No.1 on the list.
The impact on the department, which is viewed by most people as the guardian of the environment and ecosystem, has been hard enough that the department's head and its senior officials had to show up in unison before the media on Friday to dare their accuser to present the damning evidence within seven days.
This dark side of the Pollution Control Department as painted by the JSCCIB has, unfortunately, revived the bad memory of the scandalous Klong Dan wastewater treatment project in Samut Prakan province, ironically touted as the "Mother of All Corruption Cases", about three decades ago, which seems to have shattered the reputation of the department.
The corruption scandal ended with the department's head, his deputy and the director of the Water Quality Management Office being each sentenced to 20 years in prison for their dubious role in the project.
The then deputy interior minister, Watana Asavahame, was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison after he fled to Cambodia.
But the fallout from the case lingers on. The project, which is about 90% complete, has been abandoned without being activated. Damage from the project is estimated at 23 billion baht. Moreover, the PCD was ordered by the arbitration panel to pay the contractor, the NVPSKG consortium, 9 billion baht in compensation as a so-called stupidity fee.
Ever since that devastating scandal, which has left a deep scar in the PCD, the hard-working officials at the PCD have painstakingly tried to restore the reputation of the department and regain public trust. Unfortunately, the JSCCIB bombshell struck and its reputation is once again in doubt.
Other department heads as well as Deputy Prime Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, who oversees the Marine and Highways departments, which were ranked in the second and seventh places on the list, also came out to meet the media, pledging to order a probe into the accusation.
Mind you, this is just corruption concerning bureaucrats that businesspeople have been dealing with. We are waiting to see whether the private sector has the audacity to expose the politicians, who are regarded as much bigger fish and would not swallow just a chicken's feed amount of cash like the bureaucrats.
Thai entrepreneurs are familiar with giving out cash or other rewards such as expensive gifts to corrupt officials to oil the bureaucratic machinery.
This give and take tradition has been going on for time immemorial. The big question is why now, during the administration of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, are such things being exposed?
Is it because the officials have become increasingly greedy and demanding more bribes that businesspeople now feel they can no longer take it any more, have lost their patience and announced enough is enough?
The timing of the exposure coincided with a campaign against nominee firms in popular tourist destinations, among them Koh Phangan in Surat Thani province and Phuket, targeting foreign-controlled companies and the law and accountancy firms which have been busy arranging for unemployed Thais to become nominee major shareholders in foreign-controlled firms to evade the Alien Business Act.
Whether the high-profile crackdown in Phuket and Koh Phangan is real or just a knee-jerk reaction to public uneasiness, specifically towards the presence of Jewish communities on Koh Phangan in Surat Thani or even northern Pai district of Mae Hong Son, remains to be seen.
But leaving intact the role of the local officials, among them immigration, police, revenue, land and commerce officials, in the crackdown on nominee firms will be seen as a half-hearted effort to address the problem.
It all boils down to the deeply entrenched corruption which is the core problem of almost everything that has gone wrong in this country.
The issue of nominee firms controlled by foreigners has been going on unchecked for years to the extent it has become acceptable as a normal practice that nobody seems to care about.
Concerns were raised when the Jewish communities in Pai district and on Koh Phangan began to expand, sparking unease among some locals and nationalist groups that the Israelis may permanently settle down in the two popular tourist destinations and declare the land there as theirs the way they did in Gaza.
At this stage however, the large numbers of Israelis in Pai and on Koh Phangan do not pose an immediate security threat.
But increasing reports of them disrespecting Thai laws and causing public nuisances who coupled with accusations of an unfriendly attitude have made quite a few Thai people feel less than welcoming.
This is not a race issue and Thai people in general do not have a problem with tourists of other nationalities. The crackdown on nominee firms on Koh Phangan, Phuket and other tourist destinations is akin to applying medication to treat the symptom of a disease.
The root cause of the problem, which is the endemic corruption among local officials from the police, immigration to commerce and revenue agencies, must be addressed simultaneously.
Ironically, the same corrupt officials are deployed to catch wrongdoers in various probes such as officials from the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), who specialise in such work.
That is ridiculous, and probably not an overstatement to predict the whole exercise may be just a staged drama.
