Chaos at the border as Cambodian migrants return late for work after Songkran


Image: Daily News

CHANTABURI:-- Thousands of migrant workers returning late from Songkran celebrations in their home country were still trying to get back to work yesterday.

Special tables were set up to clear nearly 10,000 Cambodians who were crossing the border into Chantaburi and waiting for transports back to their jobs in Thailand, reports Daily News.

Migrants had been given clearance from the labour department to leave to celebrate Songkran but nationals from Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia were expected back no later than Wednesday.

Many clearly were just having too good a time celebrating the holidays!

The border at Ban Laem was clogged with people returning to work with officials working hard to clear the backlog of pink forms that needed to be filled in to process their return to Thailand.

Source: Daily News


-- 2016-04-22

I guess we picked the right border crossing. Nary a soul at the Koh Kong crossing yesterday....

Migrants were given the OK to leave for the holiday - so nothing illegal there and those exiting will have had the correct documentation etc..

So they left legally - and so immigration should have a record of the (temporary) exits.

So they knew pretty accurately how many would be coming back, and roughly when.

So of course they planned staffing and facilities accordingly ---- sorry, of course not. TIT.

How nice is this; Thais are getting caught up in:
- their tremendous bureaucracy with forms, more forms, pink forms, stamps, signatures - the works
- lack of planning; if 10'000 leave temporarily for Songkran it is not completely off the cards that some 10'000 might come back a week/ten days later

- how many Thais returned late to work after Songkran? Thousands - I clue ca, so is it the kettle calling the pot black?
- "Migrants had been given clearance from the labour department"; what an arrogant statement by an executive government agency! The Labour Department execute and has no legislative power; none of those clowns have to "give clearance" - that remains with the individual employer who pays the salaries and plans the jobs to generate the afore-mentioned

In a more modern society in non-third world countries these workers are issued ID cards (like the Thai ID; make it pink or yellow) which have an expiry date and keep two fingerprints on the SIM-card of the cards.

Then those card holders pass rotating gates at the border (like i.e. in Malaysia); the gate rotates only if the fingerprints match the card and the card remains valid. No rocket science there!

​This though would prevent the little tipping of all those countless Somchais which need to be employed in almost-zero qualification jobs - so it seems, that the (Thai) rooster finally comes home to roost!