Thailand Ombudsman visits Cape Town

A delegation from the Thailand Ombudsman’s Office visited the City Ombudsman’s Offices in October 2009. The purpose of the visit was to share knowledge and experience in the field of ombudsing, discuss challenges, differences and similarities, and establish co-operative linkages between the two Offices. The delegation consisted of General Teeradej Meepien (Chief Ombudsman) Mr Pramote Chotimongkol (Ombudsman), Mrs Panit Nitithanprapas (Ombudsman), Mr Chalermsak Chantaratim (Deputy Secretary General) and Mrs Nongnuch Tanin (Senior Academic and Technical Support Officer.) The issues discussed included powers and duties, legislation and organisational structures, processes and complaint handling procedures. The Thailand Office also showed a keen interest in finding out how to establish such an Office at local government level. Despite being different to our system (the system in Thailand is run at a parliamentary level and the Ombudsman has a fixed term of Office which runs for a period of six years), the visit was successful as a an informal agreement was reached for the two Offices to share future resources and innovations.

The Thailand Ombudsman was eager to understand how we operate according to a hybrid model of ombudsing. Our model contains specific the elements of the classical approach such as Formal Investigations and record keeping, whereas the organisational approach is informal and keeps no records.
 

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