Bangkok – The National Legislative Assembly has received a complaint related to land ownership from sea gypsies in Phuket.
First Vice President of the NLA, Surachai Liengboonlertchai on Monday met with representatives of the Rawai sea gypsy community, who presented him with a petition concerning their problems related to land ownership in the area.
The sea gypsies say that they have filed similar complaints many times but they have apparently fallen on deaf ears.
They subsequently traveled to Bangkok to submit another petition directly with the NLA to ask for an investigation into the Director-General of the Department of Land for his inaction about the land rights documents that cover the area where the Rawai sea gypsies have been living.
They also asked the NLA to inform the government that their problems have not been solved after an earlier TV report claimed the land dispute had been settled and requested an amendment of the Act Promulgating the Land Code B.E. 2497 to make sure the Director-General of the Department of Land will never abuse his or her power in revoking any land rights documents without legitimate reason.
Surachai assured the delegation that the NLA has been following up the issues all along and will send the committee in charge of these matters to look into them again.
