WorldFun Posted October 19, 2011 Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/262225/froc-skirting-the-truth I particularly liked the bit about compensating the sacrificed land owners lol. yeah right 5555555555555555++ "COMMENTARY Froc skirting the truth Published: 20/10/2011 at 12:00 AM Newspaper section: News If you are confused and frustrated by the government's poor and conflicting information about the flood situation, you are not alone. Nearly 90% of the respondents in an Abac poll feel exactly the same. Out of a total score of 10, the government's Flood Relief Operations Command (Froc) got a miserably low 3.36 for its announcements on the flood situation, and even a lower 3.08 for its warning system. The country is facing the biggest flood crisis ever, and the state's flood relief operations centre has flunked the test. No wonder why 87% of the poll respondents say they don't trust the information from the Froc anymore. This scenario is of the government's own making. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's team seems to believe that they can manage the flood challenge the same way they handled her election campaign by massaging the public mood through Ms Yingluck's daily feel-good photo ops and encouraging messages of hope. But when every flood barrier and every industrial estate that had been assured was safe, quickly collapsed one after another, so did the public's trust. The morning the government said the Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate was safe, it fell that same evening. When the flood centre spokesperson declared on TV right after, that Bangkok was still safe, I was not the only one who immediately started packing. Indeed, watching the flood centre's daily press conferences is like watching a group of hospital receptionists telling seriously sick patients that they are still doing fine with their paracetamol. For heaven's sake! Give us the doctors, the water professionals, the facts! What the people want is very simple: clear, specific and reliable facts. If Bangkok cannot be saved, we should be told. Then the time left could be best used to alleviate the flood pains. As the flooding approaches Bangkok, nearly half of the country is already under water. Millions have been affected, stranded on the roadsides or in submerged homes for months. Most had to flee for their lives at the last minute because of lack of information and advanced warning. Bangkok is much luckier. It has had time to prepare for the worst, as well as the luxury of having designated zones suffer inundation in order to save the capital. Yet, as far as public confidence is concerned, the Democrat-led Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has not fared much better than the Pheu Thai led-central government. What Bangkok's residents need now is accurate information about where and when their areas will be hit under different scenarios, including the worst _ so they may prepare themselves well in advance. They need to know that the city is well prepared and fully equipped to rescue the stranded, where the evacuation and food distribution centres are, and that those places are ready for the crisis at any time. They need to be informed how to avoid the health threats that come not only with putrid but toxic water from hazardous factory chemicals. They also need to be told they have the responsibility to compensate those areas that must be flooded in order to save the capital. What they don't need at all is political bickering between the Democrat-led Bangkok administration and the Pheu Thai-led central government. It is pathetic, to say the least. If anything, the flood management fiasco has shown that our government seriously lacks accurate information for effective planning; there is the incompetence of different water management agencies, and the political intervention. The Irrigation Department and Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, for example, need to explain why they had failed to release dam water early enough, which aggravated the flooding afterward. Severe flooding is going to be a fixture in our country's landscape due to drastic weather patterns from global warming. The sooner we accept this fact, the better. We need to rethink urban planning to live with rising water levels. We need to make water management figures transparent. We need to allow knowledge, both scientific and local expertise, to be foremost in the planning and decision-making, not political interests. If we allow this disastrous flood disaster management to continue, we only do so at our country's peril." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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