When will the politicians stop being greedy?

Op-ed Article
By Little Wish

I wonder when Thai politicians will stop corrupting and when the merchants will stop their greed. This week if you follow the news, you will know the news about the low quality of free school milk. When I saw this news, firstly I was so upset and then started blaming the greedy politicians and the milk vendor. Poor little children! Why they have to be the victims for the greediness of the adults? For me, this is unacceptable.

Recently, the director of Pak Lek School in Choomporn’s Phato district complained about the lack of milk quality that the government gave the children for free. The Pak Lek School’s students refused to drink because it is tasteless. And the teachers believed that it simply made from powder with high proportion of water. After this became a big story, the Food and Drug Administration did the laboratory test and confirmed that the free milk has the fat level of only 2.6% while the FDA standard is 3.2%.

Milk package was just a small plastic bag with the label writing “school milk” and the expiry date on it. There is no approval sign of Food and Drug Administration and nor the name of manufacturer. Free school milk project is under the control of the local administration. I think this is a result of the local administration and the local suppliers who are blinded with greed. The supplier intend to not print the manufacturer name because they know that this milk is low standard and produced in the bad will and tries to cover themselves if people know that milk is lack of standard.

I do not know how they can be so greedy. They can do anything to get the profit as much as they can even hurt the others or at least, the children.

This is not the first time that free school milk scandal has happened. It had happened along since the project of distributing free school milk was launched a decade ago. The true objective of distributing free milk for the children is, the government wants to promote children’s physical and mental growth. But in the real world, seem that the objective is just like the cloud that can see but it is nothing. No one take it for serious matters but see it as an opportunity for gain money and a lot of profit.

Milk provides a powerful nutrition package of nine essential nutrients including calcium, protein and potassium which is essential for children. Milk also contains seven different vitamins and minerals needed for many body functions. Nutrition in milk will help the physical and mental development and performance of children. So what will happen to the children who did get malnutrition? But more worse is the toxic milk.

The current free milk scandal is now on an investigation process of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission. They are preparing to investigate into the bidding process. I think it is good to do so. But I wonder why we have to wait for the story to become people interests before the investigation happen. How the manufacturers can produce drinking milk without the FDA approval? And could it possible for the local administrative accept tones of milk with label containing only the word “school milk” and not having the name of manufacturer itself.

When the politicians will do the thing for the people with the heart and think of the public more than themselves? When the merchant will stop being greedy? When will people stop being selfish? So when the corruption will come to an end?

Now Thai people see the corruption as a normal thing. Do you think it is right to think that way? The Officials from the top of the Thai hierarchy until local officers are all related to the corruption. There are so many corruptions occur. Therefore it might be the reason to make us use to it. But for me, it is not an excuse for us to just sit down and accept it. So what is the point of having the Anti- Corruption Commission and the court? And we, as the citizen, why we just be a watch dog for our society, our lives, our future and our children? We cannot just bow you head down and accept the fate that our advantages are taken away by those we have chosen (Politicians). It is time for us to help each other to stop the corrupted politicians and greedy merchants. Dare to fight for the right thing.