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Published on November 19, 2007

The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) would need to lay off one-third of  staff - about 6,000 people - according to a restructuring proposal.

Director Pinate Puapatankul said the proposal to reduce staff was recommended by the Finance Ministry, and it would be discussed by the Cabinet this week. The ministry said the BMTA was overstaffed.

Staff will be offered early retirement, which will cost the government Bt3.5 billion. It currently employs 18,700 people. Forty per cent of those are conductors. That works out at 5.2 staff per bus, higher than the international standard of 3.5.

The restructuring was deemed necessary given that the state enterprise, which is in charge of providing public buses in the Greater Bangkok, has run losses of about Bt5 billion a year.

It operates a total of 16,000 buses along 445 routes. Last year, it carried 1.7 million passengers a day, down considerably from 1992, when the average daily passenger figure was more than 4 million.

The finance ministry proposed restructuring the authority last year, in order to resolve its serious financial problems. The ministry also suggested that the authority reroute some buses.

Pinate said staff and unions had been informed of the proposal. Most staff to be laid off are conductors and clerical workers. They will receive the legal maximum compensation and an additional eight months' salary. Each retiree will get about Bt1 million.

Another 1,000 will be retrained to work in other areas.

"We don't think we will face any resistance, because most of the staff who will join the programme are old, and the authority is paying high compensation.

"Early-retirement programmes normally take about five years, but ours will be shorter," he said. The BMTA will do away with conductors when it introduces electronic ticketing.

It costs the authority Bt11,000 a day to run and maintain an air-conditioned bus and Bt9,200 a day for a non air-conditioned bus. It will convert all buses to natural gas and introduce a GPS satellite system and renegotiate concessions with private operators to repay debt and interest of about Bt50 billion. Pinate said the restructuring plan will require endorsement by both the Cabinet and the National Economic and Social Development Board.

Watcharapong Thongrung

 The Nation