NCPO presents consumer protection policy

The policy would support achievement of the NCPO’s four key goals – stimulate the economy and lower the cost of living, stamp out corruption, suppress the drug trade and combat crime, and revise the social order, deputy NCPO spokeswoman Colonel Sirijan Nga-thong told a press conference after a joint meeting of the junta leaders and Cabinet.

The five other measures under the policy are regulation of the cost of living and prices of commodities, management of and shelters for street beggars and homeless people, improvement of petition handling and operation of the Interior Ministry’s Damrongtham Centre; tighter regulation of charity foundation workers and prevention of their staff’s abuse of power and internal conflicts, and improvement of water in Saen Saeb Canal through wastewater management and technological and biological remediation.

The NCPO is also continuing campaigns to improve public transport services involving taxis, motorcycle taxis and commuter vans, reclaim illegally acquired state land and forests, manage garbage disposal, protect the environment, forests and natural resources, manage sidewalk usage and enforce the law to better protect pedestrians.

In the long run, the NCPO has a policy to replace commuter vans with minibuses for the safety of passengers, as the vans are known for speeding, cramming in passengers or carrying more passengers than the number of seats.

On crime suppression, lights have been installed and are now in use in 50 provinces at 180,000 locations deemed unsafe for pedestrians, 3,000 cameras have been added to the surveillance system and civil volunteers have been deployed to patrol with police in urban areas and to participate in certain anti-narcotics operations with military and police, she added.