Vice Governor Somkiet Sangkhaosuttirak was speaking with The Phuket News after a meeting he chaired on Wednesday (January 7) to try to resolve the issue of public land encroachment on Phuket.
Phuket has a total of 22,613 rai of public land spread across the province, much of it encroached upon, but the meeting initially focused on 805 rai of Forest Preserve in the Phrom Thep Cape area, all of which is occupied by individuals or businesses, it was revealed.
The meeting also tried to address who should take responsibility for ensuring that details held in the Land Office should match exactly with those held by district offices match, which is not the case at present.
The 805 rai at Phrom Thep Cape is only one area out of a total of 124 in Phuket that have been encroached on. The land is believed to have been encroached on by poor people and by businesses.
V/Gov Somkiat said that it needed to be worked out if the areas of land in question have been occupied or even become land with Chanote freehold titles.
“An example, where is the Khao Kad Forest Preserve? Can you point it out? We can see where it should be according to the maps, but in reality how many rai are left?” he asked.
“Sometimes, a Chanote has even been issued for an area of land situated in the middle of preserved land.
“The issue of public land is becoming tiring. We should not make the District Office alone responsible for this. I know they are tired.”
He suggested that a committee should be set up for each district, chaired by the district chief and including all the relevant officials.
He pointed out that Phrom Thep is not the only problem area. “Is it true that we have 32 areas of public land left in Thalang?” he asked. “How many do we actually have?
“I think when we research this – which will take some time – we may also face problems from locals who claim the land. In the past, when government officials have gone to investigate, they have been opposed by local people who claim that they lived on the land before the laws becoming applicable.”
He said that there were two main obstacles to reclaiming public land – the budget for surveying and problems such as Phrom Thep Cape where every part of the public land had been encroached on.
“The fact is that the amount of land shown in the paperwork doesn’t match with what is in the database. We need to accept that 805 Rai in the Phrom Thep Cape area has been encroached on.
“It will be very hard to take back public land that has already been encroached on. We can’t simply push the people off it.
“If the matter goes to court it will never end, or not in our lifetime.
“The truth is, these people who have lived on these areas of land are Thai so in a sense it belongs to them. It’s public land but these people have nowhere else to go, and we don’t know how to deal with that.
“So do you have the courage to bring it up in meetings and fix it, or will you simply abandon the problem?”
After the meeting, V/Gov Somkiet told The Phuket News, “We need to take the first step. Personally, I think we should cancel the public land status and give ownership of the land to the people who are on it.
“I have known about this problem for a long time. Government officers have previously done nothing about it and have let people live on public land for 20 to 30 years. I don’t understand why they have started to arrest them now and not before?
“It’s a very hard task, but I will try my hardest to resolve it.”