Upgrade Of Ko Samui Municipal Status Officially Announced

[limbos]

Upgrade of Ko Samui municipal status officially announced

Andy's excellent blog about everything about the administrative subdivisions of Thailand - history, current news, facts hardly found in English, reviews of corresponding books, the Wikipedia coverage of these entities..., well, a very interesting blog, well worth checking out.

He wonders if this announcement now may be the first of the huge backlog of municipal upgrades pending their announcement in the Royal Gazette, most of them upgrades of TAO to subdistrict municipalities however.

On Monday 4th October, the upgrade of Ko Samui from subdistrict municipality to a town municipality was published in the Royal Gazette. What makes this announcement a bit strange is the fact that the upgrade already happened in 2008, and thus it is published more than 2 years later. In fact, the announcement was signed by then Deptuy Minister of Interior Suphon Fongngam (สุพล ฟองงาม) on June 9 2008. This is also the date which I found in the annual list by the Department of Local Administration as the date on which the upgrade became effective.

The interesting question is why this announcement was kept in the pipeline for this long time, the median value for all the announcements I have already gathered in my XML is that the publication happens at 51 days after the signature - and now this announcement easily captured the maximum position with 847 days. The additional documents added in the announcement - the description of the boundary as well as the map - don't show any indication that were not yet present at time of the signature, the only date shown on both is the June 9 2008. Besides, preparing a map and the boundary description for a municipality which covers the complete island is nothing which should take that long.

[itishothere]

Hmmm ..... interesting ......

Well, I guess it would be interesting if anyone could tell me what difference this status makes.

Knowing our luck it probably just means we pay a higher level of business tax or something.

[LaoPo]

Very strange indeed it took 2 years to publish the Koh Samui Municipal Status.

I even recall we've been talking about this many times whilst, in the meantime, Samui became already a municipality...

Thanks for the update, both the OP and "Andy" !

LaoPo

[mattcodes]

[ignoring the delay] What does it mean? Apart from a title?

[H2oDunc]

If I'm right then the main benefit to this status is that now Samui gets its own budget to spend as it sees fit rather than having to apply for money from Surat Thani's ? I am told that this is what is paying for the water pipes around the island.

[limbos]

That's correct, the strange thing is that the official announcement of this change in status took 2 years to appear in the Royal Gazette.

Apparently it's been in already place during these 2 years.

[John 1]

Yes they have already started wasting money why would they run water pipes around the island. there's not enough water for the few they were servicing before now there will be very little. As for the road resurfacing maybe in my next life.

[BasementCat]

As for the road resurfacing maybe in my next life.

I thought the resurfacing of the main road would be completed this year?

[Jeanelle]

Yes they have already started wasting money why would they run water pipes around the island. there's not enough water for the few they were servicing before now there will be very little. As for the road resurfacing maybe in my next life.

Can't please people no matter what. They are laying the pipes first ,then the asphalt. New water treatment plant at Lipa Noi