Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has assigned a respected former senior police officer to form a panel to study how to reform the Royal Thai Police.
Speaking during his pre-recorded weekly TV programme aired yesterday, Abhisit said he assigned Pol Gen Wasit Dejkunchorn to form a panel to study how to reform the police.
Abhisit said the Royal Thai Police had been criticised by the public over several issues and he had met and discussed the problems with Wasit late last week.
The PM said he earlier assigned Wasit to investigate problems related to the annual reshuffle of senior police. Wasit was due to wrap up the probe and submit him a report in a few days.
Abhisit said although he and five other Cabinet members survived the censure debate, he would not ignore problems aired in the parliamentary debate.
The PM said the government would try to urgently solve the problems raised and try to restore the country after the recent riots, as well as speed up the process of reconciliation.
For example, he has instructed Transport Minister Sophon Saram to investigate alleged corruption in the blue-line subway project.
The prime minister said the government would speed up its five-point road map to reconciliation. He said his two advisers - Apirak Kosayothin and Khunying Supatra Masdit - had made good progress in a study on how to narrow social and economic disparity within the country.
Abhisit said the government would urgently carry out opinion surveys to gauge the needs of the people and prioritise what should be done first.
He said the government would seek cooperation from all polling firms to survey the needs of the people but this might take about one or two months.
The opinion surveys would be carried out in parallel with public hearings, at which representatives of all sectors would be invited to express their opinions.
The prime minister said he had approached the dean of Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Communication Arts to study how to carry out media reform to ensure press freedom, but he said the media must not be used to instigate violence.
Abhisit said Sombat Thamrongthanwong, dean of the National Institute of Development Administration, had accepted his invitation to head the study how to reform the Constitution and other related laws. Sombat was putting a team together to do the study.
The prime minister said he was still recruiting a person, who is respected and accepted by all sides, to head a panel to investigate the violence and casualties suffered during the dramatic red-shirt protest.