Age of innovation and creativity for Chiang Mai, promises PAO candidate Pun-Aj Chairatana

By | Wed 29 Jan 2025

“First thing I would do is dismantle the Provincial Administrative Organisation (PAO) of Chiang Mai and rebuild it from scratch, dismantling the entire corrupt structure. This is my expertise,” said Pun-Aj Chairanana, the Number 1 candidate in the upcoming PAO election this 1st February.

You can’t have missed all of the posters which are currently lining Chiang Mai city streets, major arteries and highways across the province as well as dotted across the villages in our mountainous region.

Citylife managed to grab a couple of hours with Pun-Aj, 52, at his home in the old city a week or so before the elections and we thought it of interest to share his thoughts on the organisation as well as what his vision is, should he take charge as its president.

Chiang Mai being the largest province in Thailand, as well as one of the most populous, with over 1.7 million residents scattered across 25 districts, poses huge challenge to administer. Unlike the governor, who is sent from Bangkok to, well, govern, the president of the PAO is locally elected, and controls a budget—this year—of 2.1 billion baht.

“The first button to push is to adjust the PAO to serve a new role which is to care for the economy, to reduce leaks in routine administration, whether in its hospital or school systems, and of course to work on the environment,” Pan-Aj continued. “When it isn’t air pollution, its floods or mudslides, we need to take in the entire ecosystem and tackle all problems. The PAO has a staff of 1,500 and we need to all work together in the same direction. I can’t promise that we can fix the PM2.5 immediately, but I do promise transparency in my efforts to do so. Of course the first 100 days or so I would have to focus mainly on the PM2.5, and this also ties in with my promise to fix corruption first. Once I have studied the current system, I can then immediately implement a new system to offer immediate fire response to mitigate spread as well as to ensure transparency. We need better alert and response systems, not just a guy with a spray can on a motorbike who reaches the fire hours too late. We need a sophisticated war room, we need to utilise all of the resources at hand, we need rapid response and also we need to educate people. Psychologically, people need a government they can trust. City people are blaming highlanders and highlanders are scratching their heads as they have already reduced forest fires by 20% from the previous year. City people sitting around reading their AQI apps and judging is not helping at all. If we can get more community involvement in forest management with clear benefits from keeping a fire-free and healthy forest, this is surely a better approach than throwing money in from Bangkok at an area here and there.”

Pun-Aj isn’t just talk. He comes with a very impressive pedigree. A local Chiang Mai man who studied at Montfort  College before reading Physics at Chiang Mai University and then gaining his Master’s degree and PhD from the UK and Denmark, respectively, in Innovation Science, Pun-Aj has also been the two-time director of the Thailand Innovation Agency. His first job in the agency was to work on the committee which steered Thailand out of the Tom Yum Kung financial crash in 1997, using innovation, technology and creativity to turn Thailand from her traditional agrarian ways into a modern society and economic juggernaut. His second job at the agency was to turn it from one of the most corrupt organisation in Thailand and restructuring it entirely, firing all but 30 staff before building the agency back up to 150 employees at the time of his exit.

“I was one of the first Thai people to have learned innovation studies. I actually wrote to a university in Sweden and asked them what it was about, and they immediately invited me to study with them.” For many years, after his return from studies abroad, Pun-Aj worked as an advisor for the National Economic and Social Development Board, mainly on competitive policies. He worked with universities, with government offices and public policies, also setting up his own consultancy firm in Bangkok to help large international development agencies such as Rockefeller Foundation and SIDA.

“There used to be policy for research, but not for innovation. So I had to write all of that up…how to develop a labour-intensive society, moving it towards knowledge intensive society. I would also help set up business schools for major Thai universities. But I found that once they were set up I was the only one who could write the curriculum and then teach it, and then offer case studies to train an entire generation. Next I began working in sectors and in communities to apply these teachings.”

So why politics?

“I genuinely feel as though I have the right skill sets for this job. It is not a job of governance, but one of administration and its my home town, my people. I chose this party because in Chiang Mai there are currently only two parties—red and orange. While this party has certainly has some politics which I don’t find very attractive, one thing about this party is that it doesn’t have an owner. It is flatter. I can carve out my own space. I have freedom to think, and to apply all that I have learned and experienced in my career.”

“Allow me to give a little overview. PAO is a bit complicated if you don’t understand the system. Unlike the C10 high level governor who is appointed by the Department of Public Administration, the president of the PAO simply administers. It’s highest levels are elected and the money comes from provincial tax. That is another urgent matter to address. By Thai law, 35% of tax sent to the capital must return to the province. Yet we are only receiving around 29% now. In some areas it is as low as 10%. We want to up this percentage and to spread power—essentially, we believe in decentralisation. The PAO has roles which include roads, forests, garbage and many such areas. While the governor looks after safety and governance, we look at development. This upcoming election will be to elect the president as well as the council of 42 people from 25 districts. It has long been understood that the council, whose salary is currently only 19,000 baht, must make money from other—[nefarious]—means. I will have to find an innovative way to address this. Ideally, we can find more senators to represent Chiang Mai to address this issue in parliament. The problem has always been though, that the senators call the Prime Minister boss, not the people.

For instance, the fire and pollution problem. The governor doesn’t have a budget to prevent fires, only for recurring costs, while the PAO does. So we need to have clear understanding of responsibilities and the public needs to be aware too and find ways they can help. I won’t be using the budget to open parks or to plan concerts; I will instead use it to set up policies and systems to react to fires. The PAO does oversight for all initiatives, so in the short term we will tackle sensor warnings and find ways to control the forest at inception. In the long term we will work with communities to manage forests.

Pun-Aj refers next to Mon Jam, the viewpoint in Mae Rim, now riddled with tents and ugly resorts. He said that the first problem with Mon Jam is the lack of a consistent oversight, where buildings are allowed to be erected only to be removed when there is some public outcry. On the other hand, he said that villagers need to be allowed avenues to prosper. He finds talking to villagers much easier than talking to entrenched forestry officials who are anti-change.

“I want to help redesign and redraw a new plan for villagers and their neighbouring forests for the entire province. I can really help with this as there are proven technologies and case studies to be drawn upon. The problem is convincing these officials.”

“My entire career has been in implementing innovation, so I feel that I am uniquely positioned to do this. If I can help communities apply for community forests, allow them freedom, within a framework, to manage these natural resources, then they will also care for it. They will be responsible for the fires as they will be earning a living from these areas. I want to get our 1.7 million residents to be more participatory.”

“My dream is to have Chiang Mai become carbon neutral by 2065. The PAO has a vast purview. We can work and endow the private sector and we can invest and do joint ventures. There are so many possibilities.”

When asked about the economy, Pun-Aj refers to Chiang Mai’s reputation as muang prab sien (a saying which means that this city vanquishes experts, implying that many investors and experts come here only to fail). “I want to turn Chiang Mai into muang sang sien (a city which creates experts). We currently rely on the agriculture sector for 30% of our income, and a further 50% on the volatile tourism sector. I want to flatten this and balance it out as the tourism sector can’t handle much more and we need to fix the environment with clean tech, climate tech, startups and support. Change this into private sector project subsidised by us. I want to reduce the tourism factor down to 40% and agriculture to 20%, and the rest can be more creative and innovative sectors.”

“Look at the Board of Investment, of which Chiang Mai only has 2% of the national quot. We need an engine to generate serious income. I haven’t even talked about my ideas to do STEAM with art education and inject innovation into our hospital care. I want to keep our kids in Fang and Hod, not have them all migrate into the city.

My main aim is not to focus on Chiang Mai city, but the entire province. I won’t just split the budget between districts and allow heads of districts to do what they want, as that is where corruption spreads. I will instead implement an infrastructure to reduce economic disparity between the city and the rural areas. We need transparency governance and my expertise is in dismantling old systems, which I believe Chiang Mai is long due for.