Complaint centre to get boost

Complaint centre to get boost

The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) wants state officials to step up efforts to handle complaints through the Interior Ministry’s Damrong Tham Centre.

NCPO chief Prayuth Chan-ocha hopes the centre — hotline 1567 — can be made more efficient and serve as a channel through which people can voice their problems.

This will not be achieved unless officials treat their jobs seriously, said NCPO secretary-general Udomdej Sitabutr after an NCPO meeting yesterday.

At the meeting Gen Udomdej conveyed Gen Prayuth’s latest order to all state agencies, asking them to help the Interior Ministry run the centre after the army chief last Friday ordered the expansion of centres nationwide and brought them under the supervision of provincial governors.

Gen Prayuth is interested in the centres as the primary means to help people. They can leave their complaints with the centres and receive advice or officials’ responses to their problems.

The Damrong Tham Centre, which literally means the centre for maintaining justice, was first established in 1994 as an arm of the Interior Ministry to help troubled people and encourage moral behaviour.

Meanwhile, in tambon Phraeksa of Samut Prakan’s Muang district yesterday, residents living near a rubbish dump site petitioned the NCPO to shut it down due to alleged irregularities and threats to their health.

The site has been under the spotlight after a fire broke out in March and burned for six days. Within two months, another two fires had broken out at the site.

Suchat Nakanok, leading a protest against the dump, said he has asked state agencies to solve the problems, but said his complaints fell on deaf ears.

After recent rainfall, villagers are also encountering waste water from the dump, Mr Suchat said.

Police charged the operators of the 70-rai dump earlier in the year for running it without a licence, but the suspects claimed they were in the midst of renewing the licence.

In Din Daeng, residents of an old block of flats asked the NCPO to probe plans by the National Housing Authority to demolish the ageing building and replace it with a new housing project.

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