Efforts to end bribery in Myanmar workers’ examination

BANGKOK, Sept 26 (TNA) -- The Labour Ministry is discussing with Myanmar authorities to address the problem of bribery in the nationality verification of Myanmar migrant workers and will take disciplinary and criminal actions against any Thai officials involved. Varanon Peetiwan, director-general of the Department of Employment, said Labour Minister Sirichai Distakul was concerned about the problem and ordered investigation and joint solutions with Myanmar. Initial investigation found no Thai officials involved with the bribery but any people who face a bribe demand could report it to authorities for further disciplinary and criminal action, Mr Varanon said. He added that labour authorities already discussed the issue with the labour attaché of the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok. Mr Varanon also said that each nationality verification center of Myanmar would increase its capacity from handling 400 people to 1,000 people a day and install devices to produce up to 1,400 certificates of identity daily. There are nine such centers in eight provinces namely Samut Sakhon (with two centers), Ranong, Tak, Samut Prakan, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Nakhon Sawan and Songkhla. As of Sept 21, 196,356 Myanmar workers paid for their identity verification process; 153,492 received queue cards for their nationality verification; and 42,864 others had yet to get queue cards. As of Sept 25, temporary work permits were issued for 26,839 Myanmar workers and 9,121 migrant employers. (TNA)