People’s Party MP Visut criticized the Southern Cabinet Tour in Songkhla for allocating over 100 billion baht mainly to infrastructure upgrades, while early childhood education averages in the South lag behind the national average. He urged a courageous rebalancing of development priorities.
On 2 September 2026, Visut Tantinan, a party-list MP from the People’s Party, commented on the Southern Cabinet Tour’s approval of development measures for five southern provinces—Songkhla, Satun, Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat—with a budget exceeding 100 billion baht. The focus was on improving roads, border checkpoints, double-track railways, and drainage systems. He said this clearly showed the government still prioritizes infrastructure, and questioned whether decades of emphasizing transportation and communication have truly improved people’s quality of life.
Visut cited data from the National Economic and Social Development Council showing that many southern border provinces have transportation and communication indices above the national average, but human development indicators—health, education, and economy—remain far below average. For example, in 2024, Yala ranked seventh nationwide in transportation and communication index but had a poverty rate of 25.41%, ranking 76th out of 77 provinces, illustrating that "Roads rank among the best, but poverty ranks among the worst."
Visut further noted UNICEF data indicating that children in the southern border provinces have far lower access to early childhood education than the national average of 75%; Yala is at 57% and Narathiwat at 65%. Basic reading skills among 7-8-year-old children average 47% nationally but only 15-27% in these border provinces. Similarly, vaccination rates among one-year-old children are concerning: the national average is 82.6%, but Songkhla is at 60.4%, Yala at 44.0%, and Narathiwat only 28.5%.
These figures reflect that the southern border’s current problem is not a lack of roads but insufficient investment in the people living alongside them—such as inadequate childcare centers, schools, and healthcare facilities. Improving quality of life cannot wait for central government meetings to decide. Visut proposed three development approaches for the South: 1. Rebalance policy focus from building hardware to investing in software—human development, health, and education; 2. Decentralize power and budgets to local authorities to better improve residents’ quality of life; and 3. The central government must recognize the unique contexts and problems of each province.
"We have repeated the same approach for decades, but results have not improved. We must boldly rebalance development by shifting focus from roads to hospitals and schools, and empower local governments with decision-making authority and budgets to genuinely meet the development needs and demands of local people," Visut concluded.