The new underpass
Work on the new underpass at Central Festival Phuket is well and truly underway.
The Samkong underpass, which will start at Tesco Lotus, will start in May. Both of these will be finished by the end of 2014.
The next step is the third underpass at Bang Koo (at the top end of the bypass road, where it meets Thepkrassatri road). Work on this project will start in 2015.
Motorists must be able to move from north to south, and south to north easily, and traffic should flow well.
We must make sacrifices now, in the form of traffic jams, to improve the island.
We understand that these improvements affect a lot of people. But if we don’t make the changes now, what will happen in 10 years time? Please bear with it.
Rohingya on Phuket
With regard to the Rohingya who have arrived in Phuket, we will do our best to help them with humanitarian aid. But this is a short term measure.
Long term, we have to listen to the government and follow their instructions as per the immigration process.
We will ask if they would like to go back to Myanmar or not, but some of them don’t want to go back, so we have to take care of them using the government policies.
Tourist Police app
The Thai Tourist Police recently launched a smartphone app called “Tourist Buddy”. This is a great idea, and a great way to use technology to help people on the island.
I think this app will be a great help to people because police can obtain a location and details about the person too.
But people need to be careful about not misusing the app, otherwise it might end up like the emergency number, 191, where two thirds of the phone calls are fake ones.
Have a good month everyone.