December 2003 : Rajabhat Bill Detained The cabinet detained a draft Rajabhat bill after several flaws were found. The Civil Servant Commission announced an implementation scheme on early retirement while the Committee of Bureacratic Reform is ready to start a second- round restructure. The government announced a policy to eradicate poverty within 6 years and approved 373.40 million baht budget to ministry of education for 3 English promotion projects. Burirum is the first province to held direct PAO election while the EC set up Pichit senator bye-election date. Rajabhat Bill Detained The cabinet decided to detain a draft Rajabhat bill from sending for a royal command and returned to the parliament for corrections. The draft bill to upgrade Rajabhat colleges to university, on its way to enactment by a royal command, was returned to the cabinet when the cabinet secretariat found it contains of several errors. The situation is similar to the draft bill on teachers and education personnel regulation previously rejected by HM the King on November 26. The opposition party, lawyers and some senators feel that the government could not detain or return the bill for corrections since article 93 of the Constitution states that a bill passed by the parliament must be sent by the prime minister for a royal command within 20 days. They proposed the bill to be submitted, together with a petiton for royal pardon and let His Majesty reject it in order to restart the enacting process again. The parliament president, on January 5, 2004 will invite chairman of the two chambers panel to a meeting to find solution to solve the problem without breaching the Constitution. One possibility is to amend the Houses regulation to allow for correction of a draft bill before enactment. The draft bill on article 18[8] states the university council shall have authority to appoint and recall the position of special professor and also the duty to consider and submit a nominee for a royal command while article 52 states the appointment should be made by the university council. Furthermore, article 18[9] states the university council shall have an authority and duty to appoint and recall the position of special professor while article 31[7] states the rector shall have such the authority and duty. Early Retirement The Civil Service Commission will implement measures on bureaucratic reform policy approved by the cabinet on 1] Early retirement: scheme for civil servants over 50 years of age or over 25 years of service to voluntary retire and receive compensation equivalent to 8-15 times salary together with ordinary pension. Each department shall have 10 percent quota and the total budget is limited to 1.3 billion baht. Application date is between January 18 to February 13, 2004. 2] Promoting state employee system in which the employee will get salary 20 percent higher to compensate other benefits that civil servants enjoy. The scheme starts this January 1. However, the Civil Service Commission approved another two measures and asked the sub-committee to further study into details on 1] the re-structure of civil servants positions by abandoning 11 PCs and classify into 4 groups; top management, middle management, technical work and service. 2] guidance to appoint top officials from different ministry and hire non-government officials to the top management position. Ministerial Re-structure The Committee of Bureaucratic Reform chaired by deputy prime minister Vishanu Krua-ngam, on December 29 considered possibilities, advantages and disadvantages of re-grouping ministries as follow; 1] Dissolve and combine ministry of culture to ministry of tourism and sports. 2] Disslove department of community development in ministry of interior and re-establish and re-name as department of community economic promotion to responsible one tambon one product policy. 3] Combine ministry of science and technology and ministry of information and communication technology. 4] Establish a sub-ministry of water under the ministry of natural resource and environment to include all public organizations responsible on water resource management. Policy to Combat Poverty The Thaksin administration announced a policy to eradicate nationwide poverty within 6 years starting from this December 6 by allowing poor people in 8 pilot provinces to register their complaints. The 8 provinces are Cheingmai, Pitsanulok, Songkla, Surat Thani, Nakorn Ratchasrima, Udon Thani, Nakorn pathom and Chon Buri while registration in the other 67 provinces and Bangkok Metro will start from January 5 until March 31, 2004. Registrators should show their identification cards, house registration records and other related documents such as mortgage contracts at their local authorities since the data will be online nationwide. The government stressed that only the real poor should register so the government can tackle actual problems rapidly. Poverty problems are classified into 7 basic categories 1] lack of land 2] homelessness 3] illegal professions 4] lack of part-time jobs for under-privileged students5] fraud 6] debts and 7] housing problems but other complaints can be registered, too. Budget to Promote English Study The cabinet on December 23 approved a budget of 373.40 million baht to ministry of education on 3 projects as follow 1] Promote skills on English for teachers teaching English 2] Promote English via radio broadcasting and CDs. 3] Establishing a center to develop skill in English for public organizations. First Direct PAO Election The first direct provincial administrative organization [ PAO] election was held in Burirum on December 14 came out that Pol. Col. Chawalit Chidchop from Burirum Rak Thai came first with 283,768 votes won the second runner-up Pol. Col. Pairote Lertvilai, former deputy police chief who received 185,510 votes. This PAO election is the first direct election ever held after the enactment of the new PAO bill on November 6, 2003 and the next direct PAO election is scheduled to be held in the middle of March since 74 PAOs term will terminate on February 4. Senate Bye-election in Phichit The Election Commission announced February 8 to be the election date in Pichit. The seat was vacant due to former senator Vichit Poollarp died of car accident on December 28. The Constitution states bye-election should be scheduled within 45 days. It is expected that it will cost 20 million baht and 68 percent of eligible voters will come to the poll.