New provision gives people a role in local administration
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MOVE IS PART OF DRAFTERS' AGENDA TO GET CITIZENS MORE POLITICALLY ENGAGED; NO SIGNS OF PAO-TAO MERGER
THE CONSTITUTION Drafting Committee (CDC) yesterday came up with a new provision that allows citizens or local communities to contribute to and support their local administrative organisations.
This is part of the charter drafters’ initiative to create opportunities for people to become more politically engaged in local affairs.
Yesterday marked the first day of drafting charter provisions on decentralisation of power and empowering local administrative organisations.
Over the past few weeks, there has been strong opposition to speculation that the CDC may merge provincial administrative organisations (PAOs) with tambon administrative organisations (TAOs).
Both organisations, consisting of elected officials, are part of the local administration.
The PAO is responsible for approving budget requests and allocating funds it receives from the central government to the TAOs under its jurisdiction.
The TAOs, meanwhile, are responsible for providing public services such as education, transport, water supply and healthcare to local residents.
The CDC’s new provision creates a support mechanism for the work of local administrative organisations allowing them to “outsource” some of their work to local volunteers.
The article states that “the provision of public services by a community or people can be done if they are able to meet the standard of welfare that is provided by local administrative organisations, then those communities or people can have such responsibilities regulated by local administrative organisations”.
The article also renames the “local governing organisations” as “local administrative organisations” in order to make the nature of its work clearer, CDC spokesman Lertrat Ratanavanich said.
This provision is considered to be the CDC’s attempt to separate clearly the scope of responsibilities between local administrative organisations and provincial governors and district chiefs, who come under the Interior Ministry’s jurisdiction.
The administrative organisations’ main responsibility is to “administer”, such as providing public services, while the governors and tambon chiefs’ duty is to “govern”, for example, overseeing local security affairs.
The tasks of local administrative organisations are seen as overlapping with the Interior Ministry’s Department of Administration, where it provides “regional administration” in the form of provincial governors and tambon chiefs, all of whom are appointed public officials.
A tambon chief, who is under the jurisdiction of the provincial governor, is responsible for overseeing the district’s security affairs, implementing the policy initiated by the central government or provincial governors and attending local events.
Yet many of them are still overseeing administrative and budget allocation affairs.
