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Published on November 1, 2007

Led by deputy director-general Wichit Pattanawisai, the officials submitted a letter of protest along with a petition signed by 676 department employees to Natural Resources and Environment permanent secretary Saksit Tridech. The protesters claimed Nisakorn's management style was not acceptable and her apolicies created conflict with senior officials.

Nisakorn responded by saying she was disheartened by the protest because she had been trying to solve problems during her one-year tenure. She acknowledged that some of her decisions had upset staff, but insisted everything had been done in the interests of the department.

After consulting with Natural Resources and Environment Acting Minister Yongyuth Yuthavong, Saksit said the ministry understood the problem and would try to promote reconciliation between the two sides. He said he would try and resolve the situation in the next two days. "There's no need for an investigation. I think the issue stemmed from miscommunication, thus should be sorted out by discussions together," he said.

The protesters yesterday handed out a 17-point list of their grievances against Nisakorn to reporters. They blamed her for suspending the Bt30-million budget for this year's project to mark Her Majesty the Queen's 72nd birthday, which they said caused the project to fail.

Another grievance was the allocation of Bt2 million to review the draft Marine and Coastal Resources Management Promotion Act, a draft bill that the protesters said had already been finished. Nisakorn was also taken to task for restructuring orders that created many different sub-sections within the department, purportedly causing confusion and conflicts.

An anonymous source at the Marine and Coastal Resources Department said Nisakorn's performance was unacceptable, particularly in light of administrative mistakes that had caused projects worth hundreds of millions of baht to fail. The source said hiring outside consultants to do work that could have been done within the department was a waste of resources, and the officials had called for a probe.

The Nation