PM Prayut vows to allocate land to the poor

[webfact]

PM vows to allocate land to the poor
Janjira Pongrai,
Anapat Deechuay,
Wasu Vipoosanapat
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-ocha has promised to deliver "happiness" as New Year gifts to low-income people.

"Through projects to be launched by various ministries, people will get free stuff and access to low-priced products," Prayut said yesterday.

He pointed out that relevant authorities had already worked on projects to extend help to people affected by his government's efforts to better regulate land use and prevent forest encroachment. Some encroachers are poor, landless and have nowhere to go.

If the prime minister gives a nod to preparations of the 'community land plots for livelihoods' plan this Friday, the handout of over one million rai of land to the landless will begin as early as January.

While the plan is reminiscent of the previous government's much-criticised policies, Natural Resources and Environment Minister General Dapong Rattanasuwan insists that it is different.

"What we do has accountability. We will have a reliable system to check land size and groups of people who are granted the right to use community land plots every six months. Absolutely, there will be no nominees," he said yesterday.

Dapong spoke after attending a meeting with representatives from relevant agencies such as the Royal Forest Department (RFD), the Agricultural Land Reform Office, and the Lands Department.

At the meeting, they discussed the plan to allocate 1.05 million rai of land as "community land plots" to landless people.

Dapong said this plan would be different from land allocation schemes in the past.

"This is not a populist scheme. It is designed to solve land problems and give opportunities to the poor," he said.

Degraded forests for handouts

RFD director general Theerapat Prayunrasiddhi said the land plots for handouts would be degraded forest zones.

"Under the new scheme, land plots won't be given to individuals but a community or a group of individuals," he explained.

Implementation would be done via the National Land Police Committee, which has Prayut as its chair and Dapong as the deputy chair.

Theerapat said the land plots would not be given to individuals like what happened in the past, because some recipients were found to have sold plots they were allocated to investors and encroached on forest zones again.

Now, the RFD is in the process of examining who should be entitled to get land plots under the new scheme.

According to Theerapat, the government is also preparing to hand out community forest to 260 communities across the country.

"It can begin in January," he said.

Kridsakorn Silarak, coordinator of the People’s Movement for a Fair Society (P-Move), saw the government's recent moves as populist efforts.

But he said: "They are not solutions that will facilitate efficient land management."

Kridsakorn also did not think the Lands Department plan to offer public fields and former graveyards to the landless would be of much use, given there were very few such plots. "Most of those plots have already been registered as public-use land plots," he said.

Kridsakorn believed the government was better to look at "overlapping areas" where communities have lived for a long time but have been unable to secure land-rights documents.

"More than 500 communities are now waiting for the issuance of community title deeds," he said.

Northeastern land reform network representative Niwat Kotjuintuk also believed community title deeds would be a good solution.

He said the government's land-distribution plans were not new ideas.

"We have had such plans in |place already including the Sor Por Kor 4-01 that is allocated as part of agricultural land reform," Niwat said.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/PM-vows-to-allocate-land-to-the-poor-30246904.html


-- The Nation 2014-11-04

[tullynagardy]

More Thaksin style populism, I await the usual yellow cheer leaders voicing their disapproval

[tullynagardy]

"What we do has accountability"

yep, the restricted press, hand picked NLA and thought re adjustment camps for anyone who dissents really is a ripe environment for checks and balances

[RustBucket]

POPULISM!!!!!!

100%

This shower should NOT be running Thailand. they clearly have no clue what the **** they are doing.

What's the betting that Prayuth will declare before the next election that he is going to form a party and stand as party leader. Once he is confident he has bought enough votes.

Edited November 4, 2014 by RustBucket

[ramrod711]

The idea of land for the poor is not new, the majority of my nearest neighbors reside on such land. As I understand it, they can use the land for as long as they live, but they do not have title to it. The problem with the idea is in the execution. In the village where I reside, choice pieces of the land are given to people who are not poor. One fellow has several pieces, all of them are very desirable and would bring a big price if sold. This fellow is a good friend of the headman and owns a fair sized business. I would suggest that the General not leave the administration of such a project to local officials.

[baboon]

I thought land distribution to the poor was the prerogative of someone else?

[JOC]

I thought land distribution to the poor was the prerogative of someone else?

He, "who cannot be mentioned" aka Mr T

[ezzra]

Every PM and government as far as my memory serves me, and it's still serves me right, has "vowed"

to give land to the poor, and still there are poor, landless people by the hundreds of thousands..

how's that?

[NongKhaiKid]

Was it not said a couple of days ago that mechanisms would be put in place to stop political parties using populist policies which opened a debate on what the definition of ' populist ' might be.

[comeondoit]

again the "populism is bad" is posted everywhere....it must not be bad if done in a controlled manner looking for the most sustainable impact. Let me make an example

The rice pledging scheme was an unconditional money handout to farmers. they could produce as they always did ..no progress needed (it is amazing that Thailand has one of the lowest outputs per hectare among the rice planting countries).

Sustainability could have been improved by taking part of that money to train farmers to improve planting skills (was done in India) by reducing the usage of fertilizers and so on..... and forcing and supervising them before they get money!!!!......needs intelligent and thinking politicians to achieve...and that was the greatest failor of the red shirts governement they had too many incompetent idiots in power.

Giving unconditionally land to the poor will have no sustainable effects....if the landless do not get in the same momnet help about what to do with the land. And the usage of the land must be supervised. New planting on abandoned land would be sustainable

As of that article the junta seems to think in that line,,,,I am interested to mfollow and see how it will develop

[Borzandy]

Many lands were previously purchased at very low prices to ruined farmers by rotten and influent politicians.

[BirdsandBooze]

I hope he doesn't delegate Suthep to distribute the land.

[bartobar]

Good philantropic move.

[RobthaiIre]

Maybe the junta should look into the ownership of the millions of rai that is owned by a small number of people and institutions or would that be a little to close for comfort. Strange how public servants in Thailand seem to be able to accumulate vast amounts of wealth on very modest salaries.

You would think that some of these very very wealthy individuals and institutions might give a very small fraction of their wealth/land to people that need it. Mmm.... naahh this is Thailand, people usually don't like to give unless there is something into for themselves (usually a big fat bundle of cash!)

Giving is for the poor, taking is for the rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kriswillems]

I know another man that has tried to play this kind of tricks.

I don't say it's all bad, but the other man has been seriously blamed for it.

The thing that Thailand needs is a very high land tax for anyone owning more than 20 rai.

This is the way how this kind of problems are solved in other countries.

Here is seem impossible because it would hurt the leaders of the country (up to the highest leader of all Thais).

Edited November 4, 2014 by kriswillems

[ginjag]

If he took it away there would be outcry-------he gives it there is ridicule..... go back to bed you apologists.

[tingtong]

Santa, watch out for competition this year!!!

Our good general is coming to town too!

[GarryP]

As they kick people out of the forrest reserves who have been living there for generations, in some cases before the forrests became national parks.

[Robby nz]

I hope he doesn't delegate Suthep to distribute the land.

Might not be to bad an idea he has been the only one to do it successfully so far :

Suthep gave title deeds to 592 plots of land in Khao Sam Liam, Kamala and Nakkerd hills of Phuket province to 489 farmers. It was later found that members of 11 wealthy families in Phuket were among the recipients.

498 farming families got land in that deal, only 11 were considered wealthy, meaning the other 487 families were poor.

Quite a success ratio really, only have to look over his shoulder to make sure no wealthy get any this time.

[lildragon]

Wait a minute. I thought the whole idea of ridding Thailand of the shins was to stop these kind of duping populist policies?

Red and Yellow, all dancing to the same tune of these self serving 'public servants'

[rickirs]

Let's look at Gen. Prayuth's vow from a practical perspective.

Assume the property is federal or municipally owned. A "poor" person receives a public property with no title that is either vacant, undevelopable or abandoned. Now what? Being poor, the person has no capital to develop the property for any legal business purpose to sustain themselves and with no title cannot borrow funds from legitimate lenders. Without Gen. Prayuth's popular government-guaranteed payback (GGP) soft loan, the only remaining option is to essentially sublease the property to someone else who can develop it. But if there was a third party who wanted to make use of the property, wouldn't that have been done already by the municipality?

There are many other practical considerations such as eligibility, method for allocation, selection of property for allocation, property access, property sustainability, bureaucracy to monitor use, etc.

It would seem simpler to just put poor people on welfare.

[finnomick]

................Great, our family has several ' poor ' members living on the meagre 500 baht a month pension. Now all they have to do is arrange transport to the ' promised land '.

[cocopops]

Was it not said a couple of days ago that mechanisms would be put in place to stop political parties using populist policies which opened a debate on what the definition of ' populist ' might be.

It seems that "populist", as defined in modern Thailand, has to do with the perceived intent of the legislator. Those that do the determining have determined that the PT policies were intended only to help politicians. Whereas the current round of proposals, despite appearing superficially similar, are intended to restore happiness to the people. And are therefore not populist.

Does that clear things up?

Edited November 4, 2014 by cocopops

[Alwyn]

If he took it away there would be outcry-------he gives it there is ridicule..... go back to bed you apologists.

He did take it away did he not? Kicking poor families and some tribal types out of their homes in national forests, today he wants to give poor people land in the forests. Only one apologist here - as usual - and that's you, again.

[mrjohndub]

Umm...Just about everybody's poor compared to the General and his Cabinet.

[Robespiere]

Suthep's looking for work.

The General could get him to help distribute the land, you know, to make sure it ended up in the right hands.

Sor Por Kor 4-01 anyone?

[ramrod711]

If he took it away there would be outcry-------he gives it there is ridicule..... go back to bed you apologists.

He did take it away did he not? Kicking poor families and some tribal types out of their homes in national forests, today he wants to give poor people land in the forests. Only one apologist here - as usual - and that's you, again.

Kridsakorn also did not think the Lands Department plan to offer public fields and former graveyards to the landless would be of much use, given there were very few such plots. "Most of those plots have already been registered as public-use land plots," he said.

Kridsakorn believed the government was better to look at "overlapping areas" where communities have lived for a long time but have been unable to secure land-rights documents.

"More than 500 communities are now waiting for the issuance of community title deeds," he said.

Northeastern land reform network representative Niwat Kotjuintuk also believed community title deeds would be a good solution.

I reread the article to see what park lands were going to be given away, I didn't see any. There are plots of land already earmarked for this project, the problem is that poor people allow them selves to used by wealthy people. Instead of taking the land, building homes which they could never have afforded otherwise, they take a small amount of money, apply for the land, then sell it. The parks need to be protected, they should be sacrosanct, the most outrageous issue that you brought up is not that poor people have been evicted, but that rich resort owners have not. If you demolish a poor farmers house then demolish the multi million baht resorts as well. This land offer could be a boon to people, if only the corruption could be eliminated. Would it be such a hardship for the rich to not try to steal this opportunity?

[Alwyn]

If he took it away there would be outcry-------he gives it there is ridicule..... go back to bed you apologists.

He did take it away did he not? Kicking poor families and some tribal types out of their homes in national forests, today he wants to give poor people land in the forests. Only one apologist here - as usual - and that's you, again.

Kridsakorn also did not think the Lands Department plan to offer public fields and former graveyards to the landless would be of much use, given there were very few such plots. "Most of those plots have already been registered as public-use land plots," he said.

Kridsakorn believed the government was better to look at "overlapping areas" where communities have lived for a long time but have been unable to secure land-rights documents.

"More than 500 communities are now waiting for the issuance of community title deeds," he said.

Northeastern land reform network representative Niwat Kotjuintuk also believed community title deeds would be a good solution.

I reread the article to see what park lands were going to be given away, I didn't see any. There are plots of land already earmarked for this project, the problem is that poor people allow them selves to used by wealthy people. Instead of taking the land, building homes which they could never have afforded otherwise, they take a small amount of money, apply for the land, then sell it. The parks need to be protected, they should be sacrosanct, the most outrageous issue that you brought up is not that poor people have been evicted, but that rich resort owners have not. If you demolish a poor farmers house then demolish the multi million baht resorts as well. This land offer could be a boon to people, if only the corruption could be eliminated. Would it be such a hardship for the rich to not try to steal this opportunity?

Fair comment about my not mentioning the rich resorts that got to stay! Fair comment all around really.

[Robby nz]

Umm...Just about everybody's poor compared to the General and his Cabinet.

Not everybody, all the EX PT politicians are wealthier, particularly their patron who is wealthier than the lot of them put together.

[billd766]

I hope he doesn't delegate Suthep to distribute the land.

Or just about ANYBODY in the PTP.