The diving seminar will be held from 1pm-430pm Thursday February 10 at La Flora Resort and Spa, Bang Niang Beach. Telephone: 076-428 000


DIVERS troubled by a selective ban on coral reef sites at Phuket's Andaman marine parks and a massive graft investigation will have a chance to ask questions at a seminar this week.

The seminar is being planned for a Phang Nga resort on Thursday, February 10, by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, with divers from Phuket and Phang Nga invited to attend.

The meeting comes amid fresh reports of a ''ghost ticket'' swindle that is the latest allegation of corruption in the Phuket region's diving sites.

Phuketwan has learned that park tickets that should be torn in half are being retained and reused. The tickets are meant to be torn, with one half for the tourist and the other for the boat operator.

At Surin island with just one entrance point, the abuse is not as great as at the Similan islands, where the rip-off occurs repeatedly, sources have told Phuketwan.

Diver say that measures to allow the coral reefs to recover from excessive bleaching will prove irrelevant unless authorities act to stop the extensive fishing and poaching that they say continues to cause much greater long-term damage to the Phuket region's marine treasures than mass tourism.

In the last sign of the despair within the dive industry, a veteran operator tells of his torment:

''I write to you because Thai dive operators are in desperate situation as:

- Most of coral reefs in the Andaman Sea are dead or badly damaged, and in particular at Similan and Surin Island marine parks, as well in the south at Phi-Phi, Koh Ha Yai, Hin Daeng, Hin Muang and Tarutao Islands.

- Thai authorities do nothing to set up a mechanism to stop poaching within parks and few large fish are seen while diving. Sharks, rays, tunas are from the past.

- Many foreigners set up tour and dive companies with two million baht in order to get work permits but in fact they just pay 20 up to 30,0000 baht for paperwork to an accounting office or lawyer and all Thai directors, 51 percent Thai shareholders and four Thai staffs for one work-permit are proxy Thai people working for the accounting or lawyer's offices.

- With the easy-going attitude to register companies with the Phuket Phang Nga and Krabi administrations we have more than a thousand dive companies registered with TAT Region 4 and every week, more foreign instructors are setting up their dive companies to work as freelance dive instructors.

- Large dive operators in order to avoid control are splitting their businesses in different companies and employ dozens of foreign instructors as freelance employees with their own work-permit. Thai staffs are just the car drivers, boat crew or petty jobs.

For your information, just to mention:

- Company A (Patong) has to lease on long term one of the two liveaboard dive boats they own for lack of customers.

- Company B (Patong) had to sell its liveaboard dive boat and sell its dive shop in Patong to cope with the lack of business.

- Company C (Chalong) was not able to repair its liveaboard dive boat and is desperately in need to find a buyer before it sank in Chalong Bay and has to close its office in Chalong for lack of business.

- Company D (Kata) has few customers on its day dive trips and is able to survive because of non-diving industry income.

- Company E (Patong) just gave up operating the Patong office and stopped its day dive boat and will try to continue by running a liveaboard dive boat with a home office in Chalong.

- Company F (Phuket City and Khao Lak) lost 15 years ago a luxurious dive liveaboard boat and the second boat is rotting at a shipyard. The dive business is running with one boat.

- Company G (Chalong) had no customers on November-December for its dive liveaboard boat and had been borrowing to cover monthly expenses.

Under the Asean Economic Community plan, Thailand is set to raise its 49 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of logistics service operators to 51 percent in 2011 then to 70 percent in 2013.

Singapore, Laos and Cambodia already allow 100 percent foreign ownership of logistics-related business.

Once the single market is fully implemented under the framework of the AEC, all trade barriers will be removed. Thailand will have to treat foreign companies from Asean using the same standards as those applied to Thai companies.

The AEC groups 10 Southeast Asian countries - Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and Laos.

- Up to December 31 2010: 49 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of logistics service operators.

- From January 1 2011 up to December 31 2012: 51 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of logistics service operators.

- From January 1 2013 up to December 31 2014: 70 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of logistics service operators.

- From January 1 2015 up: 100 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of logistics service operators.

Today any foreigner or group of foreigners are able to set up a dive or tour company in Singapore and owning it at 100 percent and since January 1 2011 that Singaporean company is able to buy or set up a Thai company at 51 percent ceiling on foreign ownership and have the majority at the board of directors.

As there are no serious controls about the money invested (two million baht for a work-permit) to set up the Thai company as well the ratio of four Thai staffs/one foreigner for a work-permit, Phuket and Thailand will become an E Dorado for opportunists in greedy businesses and conflicts between Thai operated businesses and foreigners grabbing large part of businesses through bribes will intensify in the near future.

From new year until the middle of February, most of us will get enough business to cover the monthly expenses but all of us have no clear booking until the end of the high season in April and nothing for the coming low season.

I have spoken with many Thai dive operators and all of them do not want to complain as they do not trust Thai civil servants for help.

I believe Thailand is changing and we may be able to get help from officials with clear reports of what is going on.''

The venue for the meeting on February 10 will be announced shortly and Phuketwan will provide an update. Marine biologists have also been invited to attend.