Pressure on SSO to hold board vote

Labour and migrant workers’ rights advocacy groups are stepping up pressure on the Social Security Office (SSO) to honour its promise to hold an election to pick its board members next month.

Led by the Labour Network for People’s Rights (LNPR) and Migrant Working Group, the activists jointly submitted a petition on Tuesday, asking the SSO to update the public on its plan to hold the election.

If the SSO fails to honour the promise, these advocacy groups will report it for dereliction of duty to the authorities, warned Sia Champathong, president of the LNPR.

The current SSO board has been in office for eight years since it was installed by the now-defunct National Council for Peace and Order following the 2014 coup, he said.

Since a new regulation on the election of the board came into effect in 2021, not a single election has been held, he said.

And when the…