Two tasks for the NCPO

Two tasks for the NCPO

Overpriced lottery tickets and encroachment on prized land such as in the Sirinat National Park in Phuket were two priority problems tackled by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) shortly after the May 22 coup.

It initially appeared that the NCPO had made some progress on the lottery problem by lowering the retail prices from an average of 100 baht per ticket through the redistribution of lottery quotas to retailers and strict enforcement against overpricing.

Regrettably though, the NCPO had not touched a handful of big wholesalers who have been given a huge chunk of the quota under long-term contracts and are alleged to have control of lottery prices.

The new lottery order worked, but just for a few months. After that, it was business as usual. Lottery prices have now gone up to the same level as before the coup and they are openly on sale without any officials from the Lottery Bureau or the police making any arrests.

It has effectively become a non-issue that even the NCPO and the government do not want to talk about.

The illegal land grab at Sirinat National Park by influential encroachers was given extensive media coverage when military personnel and officials from the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Royal Forest and Land Departments descended on Sirinat last August to investigate.

The high-profile handling of the problem, coupled with promised support from the NCPO, won public support and gave hope that the encroached land would be reclaimed and rehabilitated. But the situation now looks bleak, and the main reason seems to be reluctance by the Phuket Land Office to cooperate with Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP).

The department chief Niphon Chotiban told the press on Tuesday that his men had encountered several problems when they tried to obtain important land documents from the Phuket office.

He said the land officials said they could not find the documents, or when the documents were available, they would make excuses that they did not have the right machines to make copies of the documents.

To solve this nonsense, Mr Niphon said he had three copying machines installed at the office and had three officials posted there just to copy the necessary documents. Yet new problems kept cropping up, so he sent DNP director Samak Donnapee to iron out any differences.

The DNP has, so far, managed to complete investigations of cases involving only 16 plots of land covering 244 rai, with recommendation for the Land Department to revoke land ownership rights of the plots.

But these cases represent just a fraction of about 815 land plots encroached on at Sirinat National Park.

It is understandable why Mr Niphon and his officials at Sirinat were frustrated with the dismal progress they have made in their attempt to reclaim the encroached park land. It can also be assumed why the Phuket land officials are reluctant to cooperate. The required documents will help prove whether the land title deeds — or nor sor sam — issued by the Phuket Land Office to encroachers are legal or not.

The conflict between the DNP and Phuket office or the Land Department should not be allowed to drag on.

The NCPO or the government must step in to show the Phuket Land Office a big stick. Failure to address this problem will reflect badly on the NCPO.

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