Local headmen oppose call for provincial bodies to be abolished
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Local leaders have expressed strong opposition to the idea of abolishing all provincial administrative organisations (PAO).
The Kamnan and Village Headmen Association submitted a petition to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday through Pansak Chareon, a director of the government’s Public Complaints Centre.
The association’s chairman Yongyos Kaewkheow led several locally elected leaders to object to the proposal – by Thai Federation of Deputy District Chiefs – to dissolve the PAO.
Yongyos argued that provincial administrations served important roles in helping people and maintaining social stability, including turning government policies into action.
“If these local administrations were cancelled it would affect central government plans for managing national resources and maintaining peace and stability,” the chairman said.
Rewat Kreabuddee-mahachoke, from the Federation of Deputy District Chiefs, proposed reform of local administrations and PAOs. He said local administrations were behind many corruption problems, and abused their power.
“They should be dissolved for the sake of our citizens,” he said. “Personally, I propose the dissolving of all the PAO because their members have not helped the people and cannot manage their organisations efficiently – which also leads to corruption problems.”
He noted that there had been no law prescribed in the case of bonus payments by local organisations from 2011 to 2014, and this had caused huge amounts of national funds to be lost.
The Office of Auditor General had also found many acts of corruption in developmental projects. Local bodies’ expenditure had long been considered unlawful, it said.
The District Chiefs said the chairmen of local administrations had abused their power and threatened lower ranked officials. Therefore these organisations must be dissolved and the government focus on decentralisation of executive branches to smaller administrative organisations – such as the tambon – to determine what people really want, Rewat said.
He also voiced concern over direct election of provincial governors, saying it could affect public administration as a whole, and could cause conflict in the country.
