Candidates outline their main policies
Written by changthai11 on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Candidates outline their main policies
Pledges range from garbage to education
MANOP THIP-OSOD
Four of the key candidates to be Bangkok’s next governor produced long lists of promises to make the city a better place to live during a major debate yesterday. Making Bangkok green, providing more quality schools, introducing transferable transport tickets and doubling the salaries of city officials were among the pledges made by the four front-runners ahead of Sunday’s election.
Joining the debate at the Thai-Japanese Youth Centre in Din Daeng were Kriangsak Charoenwongsak, Prapas Chongsa-nguan, Chuwit Kamolvisit and Leena Jungjanja. The forum was jointly organised by the Bangkok Post, Post Today, Business Radio and the TNN 24 news programme of TrueVisions.
”I will detox Bangkok by acquiring 281 plots of land and transforming them into public parks that will produce oxygen for Bangkok. I will make the 50 districts have 50 colours and 50 species of plants,” said Mr Kriangsak, candidate number 2.
He promised clear water in Bangkok’s canals by having the canals dredged and developing a wastewater treatment network that could treat all the capital’s wastewater.
He said he would handle the capital’s 2,000 tons of daily garbage with a good recycling process. Garbage will be transformed into compost for the capital’s plants and people will be encouraged to sort out trash.
People could contact a call centre and its staff would arrive to collect garbage in half an hour, Mr Kriangsak said.
All Bangkok schools would be improved up to the standard of university demonstration schools and be accessible to both rich and poor students, he said.
Mr Prapas, candidate number 10, said City Hall would develop feeder systems, including passenger boat routes, to carry commuters to the main mass transit systems. He also wants transferable tickets for the different modes of public transport.
He wants footpaths to be smoothed out for the disabled. He wants better facilities for the elderly who, he said, helped develop the nation. Doctors would visit old people, not vice versa, because the old had travel difficulties, Mr Prapas said.
Mr Chuwit, candidate number 8, said sorting garbage would cover not only the different categories of rubbish bins, but also different types of trucks to collect the different forms of refuse.
He vowed to collect a progressive garbage tax from the sources of considerable garbage like hotels, factories and shopping malls and promised to give a tax exemption to households who sorted garbage.
Candidate number 7 Mrs Leena said city staff would not collect garbage from anyone who failed to sort their waste. Floods in Bangkok would be pumped to Min Buri and Nong Chok to help farming there, she said.
She dreams of enormous forestation in Bangkok to absorb water and floods and also plans to have inmates clean drains every week to maximise the drainage capability of the capital.
