In conversations with The Phuket News in the past week, the Governor said that Phuket is catching flak, most recently for tuk-tuk actions in Patong and stolen passports but he is fighting to reclaim the island’s reputation.
The Governor noted that he had recently been looking at solutions for environmental problems ranging from picking up garbage, checking out the treatment of elephants at safari camps and solving the problems of goat farmers to leading all the officers involved in fixing water shortage problems.
He had also been tackling land encroachment, he said, climbing up a steep mountain himself, leading officials to land deep inside the forest “to catch those illegal land invaders”.
Governor Maitri also said he has been working on improving Phuket’s infrastructure with a variety of projects to solve traffic jams. “It seems that the traffic in Phuket is improving every day,” he said. “Underpasses, tunnels and widening of roads are on the way.”
“Phuket is the tourist destination with the second highest revenue in Thailand. Any city in the world with a lot of tourists has both advantages and disadvantages. The higher the revenue, the more disadvantages there will be.
“The recent tuk-tuk rally in Phuket is an example of the problems that originate from conflict and misunderstanding between two groups of businesses.
“Each of the business operators has to struggle to earn a living in order to keep up with rapid changes in the environment and the economy.
“As human beings, we need to understand that chaos undeniably happens. It would be unjust to blame any particular person, place or situation.”
Addressing the revelations of passports going missing on the island – highlighted by the news that two Iranian passengers on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 were travelling on passports reported missing in Phuket in 2012 and last year – the Governor was irritated that Phuket is being blamed.
“Phuket attracts all kinds of people from all walks of life from around the world. Everybody wants to get the most benefit for themselves. Phuket is being unfairly vilified because all of these people were greedy to make money from these disappearing passports.
“Phuket needs a higher budget from the central government to strengthen the police. Phuket earned the second-highest revenue for Thailand, yet because we have a low registered population we get insufficient funding from the central government, which is unfair.
“If Phuket were an independent city I assure you that many of these horrible accusations would disappear.”
The Governor also pleaded for more dialogue to overcome language barriers, poverty, education shortfalls and “some of the traditional attitudes of Thai people that cause breakdowns in communication between foreigners and Thais.”
He suggested, “We need regular meetings to discuss and exchange opinions and views in order to understand each other better.
“We can make this world a better place.”