Prayut to use powers under Article 44 to extend migrant worker registration until June

By The Nation

 

 

PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha will exercise his absolute power under Article 44 to extend the deadline for the national verification of migrant workers until the end of June next year, as nearly 1 million of them remained undocumented, the government spokesman said yesterday.

 

The government acknowledged more than 900,000 migrant workers had not yet completed their registration process to work legally in Thailand, said spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd. The Labour Ministry said earlier that nearly 2 million migrant workers from neighbouring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia needed to be registered before being allowed to work in Thailand. That figure is made up of 1.2 million migrant workers from Myanmar, 616,282 from Cambodia and 159,313 from Laos. 

 

The ministry has already completed verification of the nationalities and documentation for 1,041,043 people but could not complete all remaining workers within the original March 31 deadline.

 

Labour Minister Adul Saengsingkaew had said on Thursday that he would seek Cabinet approval next week to extend the deadline for the national verification process until June 30, but that timing would not work since the new law on migrant worker management is scheduled to come into force on January 1.

 

Prayut is considering a quick solution using Article 44 to solve the problem, said Sansern.

 

National verification is compulsory for migrant worker documentation after the current military-backed government issued a new law on migrant worker management, stipulating tough punishment for the use of illegal migrant workers. 

According to the new foreign labour law, employers of illegal migrants could face a hefty fine of Bt400,000 to Bt800,000 per migrant worker if found to have violated the law. 

 

The government decided to delay enforcement after panicked migrants fled back home due to fear of tough punishment.

 

“The prime minister gives importance to effective management of workers to solve the problem permanently,” Sansern said. “Employers and employees should understand the rules and procedures. Don’t panic.” 

 

One-stop service centres in provinces are being put in place to speed up the national verification process, he said, adding that migrant workers must be documented by the end of June next year.

 

The national verification for migrant workers stirred a controversy in November when Prayut blamed the former director of the employment department for the slow progress and demoted him to an inactive post, prompting the surprise resignation of General Sirichai Distakul as labour minister. 

 

Prayut then exercised his absolute powers under Article 44 to restructure the migrant worker management, setting up a new committee to take care of the task. 

 

The new committee is chaired by the permanent secretary of the Interior Ministry. Its members include officials from not only the Labour Ministry but also from the Foreign and Interior ministries, as well as police.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30335071

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-12-30

The entire issue has been a textbook case of terrible governance.

 

Bring in a law on short notice with little or no consultation with affected stakeholders. Create a system of incredible bureaucratic and complex registration without doing the preparatory work or even evaluate if it is possible. Mix in limited facilities for the actual registration. Add extreme penalties in terms of jail or fines. Finally, give a short time frame for implementation.

 

This thing was a disaster before it even began.

 

The law, its introduction, and the steps taken for implementation should be written up as a case study and become required reading on 'what not to do' in every school of Public Administration on the planet.

 

2 minutes ago, Samui Bodoh said:

The entire issue has been a textbook case of terrible governance.

 

Bring in a law on short notice with little or no consultation with affected stakeholders. Create a system of incredible bureaucratic and complex registration without doing the preparatory work or even evaluate if it is possible. Mix in limited facilities for the actual registration. Add extreme penalties in terms of jail or fines. Finally, give a short time frame for implementation.

 

This thing was a disaster before it even began.

 

The law, its introduction, and the steps taken for implementation should be written up as a case study and become required reading on 'what not to do' in every school of Public Administration on the planet.

 

 

24 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

Prayut then exercised his absolute powers under Article 44 to restructure the migrant worker management, setting up a new committee to take care of the task.

It is now appearing that one good use of Prayut's beloved Article 44 is to unravel the administrative messes left behind by his incompetent ministers.

It would be interesting to see how the first case of an illegal migrant worker plays out. 

Are they really going to put a family in jail for 5 years for working in a thai factory on a miserable income? 

 

They can't register 2 million in over a year. 

And yet the democrat party are required to register 2 million people in a month. 

A post containing a disallowed reference to the PM has been removed:

 

 

58 minutes ago, greenchair said:

They can't register 2 million in over a year. 

And yet the democrat party are required to register 2 million people in a month. 

Registering as a migrant worker is a rather more complex than signing up as a member of a political party. 

 

Well, perhaps not under this Government!

26 minutes ago, madmitch said:

Registering as a migrant worker is a rather more complex than signing up as a member of a political party. 

 

Well, perhaps not under this Government!

Apparently they cannot just sign their name. 

They have to submit several papers with all their information. Then the leaders also have to make sure none of them are fake, because they themselves can be prosecuted for submitting fake documents. The sentence for that is very high. So no it is not as easy as just submitting a name.