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Published on March 22, 2008

 A BMA spokesperson quoted in the daily xpress said the capital "saw" 441 bush fires last month. I wonder how the BMA recorded this figure?

 First, I would like to know exactly what the BMA did to stop or prevent those 441 bush fires?

 Second, I think a fine of only Bt14,000 is ridiculous. I feel the fines should start at Bt10,000 and increase up to at least Bt1 million for major industrial burners.

 Third, in the suburbs around Bangkok, most of the fires are lit by farmers who want to burn off their harvested rice fields. In BMA terminology, are these farmers "arsonists"?

Every day for the last few weeks there has been more than one rice field burnt near my housing area. There is smoke and soot everywhere in the air, and, as an asthmatic, I find it difficult to breathe. Is the BMA going to stop these farmers from burning, and educate them on how to take care of their fields without resorting to burning?

 Fourth, there are several fires lit almost every day by factories in my area. I can tell these are not rice field fires from the smoke, which is black, and the plastic or chemical smell, compared to the rice field fire smoke, which is relatively white. How is the BMA going to stop these fires?

I would like to suggest that the BMA do the following:

1) Advertise a hotline number for people to report any type of fire;

2) Charge the owner of the property the appropriate fine for the fire, and ensure jail time for the person who starts the fire;

3) Divide the fine into four parts: 10 per cent for the hotline caller, 20 per cent for the police to try to catch the person who started the fire, 20 per cent for the fire department to put out the fire, and 50 per cent to the BMA to fine the property owner and to prosecute who started the fire.

Last week one of your Xpress articles mentioned that bush fires were one of the three major causes of the air pollution in the metropolitan Bangkok area. The government official who made this announcement said he was monitoring the air pollution daily, but said nothing about what he was doing to stop or decrease air pollution.

Perhaps the BMA can help stop all the people who think that burning is the proper way to clear the rice fields, clear the bush, or get rid of garbage and industrial waste. I sure hope so, since I would really like to be able to breathe clean air.

John P Dinga

Bangkok

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Reading of electoral-fraud rules betrays their spirit

Re: "Interpretation of law delays parties ruling", Politics, March 19.

Atthayuth Butrsripoom's piece contains the following: "EC (Election Commission) secretary-general Suthiphon Thaveechaiygarn said the fact-finding panel gave their recommendations that the EC cannot take recourse over the two articles [Article 237 and 103 of the Constitution organic law] in this case, because the law only discussed the issue of party executives acknowledging electoral fraud or failure to take action against electoral fraud, and not about party executives themselves committing an electoral offence."

What then is the situation when party executives themselves commit an electoral offence? After they have done so, those executives most certainly know that electoral fraud has occurred. If they then fail to take action against that fraud, surely they must be culpable under the articles? It is then up to a court to decide whether what took place was fraud, not the EC.

It is surely not possible for the drafters of those two clauses to have deliberately phrased them so as to enable crooked politicians to wriggle off the hook. When interpreting such clauses the basic mindset of the drafters should be taken into account, and ruthlessly so. Any other manner of interpretation should attract a charge of partiality and censure, especially when the EC itself is involved.

John Benson

Bangkok

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