PM orders speedy move for development projects in Thai far South

NARATHIWAT, THAILAND, December 27 (TNA) - Prime General General Prayut Chan-ocha has ordered concerned parties in charge of implementing development projects in the violence-plagued Thai far South to accelerate them without delay. Prime Minister General Prayut made the order when meeting concerned authorities in the southernmost Narathiwat Province on Friday, when he also instructed the concerned agencies handling development projects to report to the government's Committee on Strategy to Solve Problems in the Southern Border Provinces so that the government will allocate budget and jobs will be created in 2015. The prime minister stressed that every agency must cooperate with each other and work as a team to enable every project to move forward. As his government can exercise special power in administration, the prime minister noted, there should not be any obstacle to hinder projects from moving forward, adding that projects must advance from now on and if no progress was made, that particular agency and officials would be “punished for violating order”. Prime Minister General Prayut, who made his first visit to the Thai South on Friday after taking office in September 2014, said that his government will use politics, instead of military in solving violence in the Thai deep South, which has continued for almost every 11 years. The prime minister said the ongoing situation in the Thai far South is “not a war” and it is only difference in the ideology between troublemakers and the state. (TNA)