Outline of Thilawa Complaint Management Procedure (TCMP)
The Thilawa Special Economic Zone Complaints Management Procedure (TCMP) supports stakeholders to raise questions or concerns with the Thilawa Special Economic Zone (TSEZ) and have them addressed in a prompt and respectful manner. The TSEZ aims to address all complaints received, regardless of whether they stem from real or perceived issues. Any stakeholder who considers themselves affected by the TSEZ’s activities will have access to this mechanism at no cost.
Thilawa SEZ seeks to foster trust in the process and its outcomes. To this end it will communicate this TCMP in an understandable manner to affected stakeholder groups. Confidentiality will be respected and the TSEZ will take all reasonable steps to protect parties to the process from retaliation.
This TCMP aligns with existing TSMC and MJTD directives and initiatives regarding responsible business, as follows:
- Thilawa Special Economic Zone Management Committee Notice No. 04/2015: The Notice to Ensure the Responsible Investment in the Thilawa SEZ.
- The UN Global Compact (UNGC)’s Ten Principles; MJTD has been a signatory since October 2015.
It also supports the Thilawa SEZ’s alignment with international good practice in stakeholder engagement.
TCMP does not replace existing Myanmar legal processes, or Thilawa SEZ administrative processes already in use. In addition, it does not impede access to other judicial or administrative remedies that might be available through domestic law or through existing arbitration procedures.
The system and operational issues of TCMP has been reviewed periodically since the launch in November 2017 and the result of review work published in 2018 is summarized in following web page.
Operation of TCMP
1. Process to Deal With Complaint Management
The procedure of complaint management has 6 steps as follows.
[ Overall procedure of TCMP ]
Once Community Relation Team (CRT) receives complaints, CRT acknowledges to a complainant for receiving a complaint within 7 days after receiving.
CRT then assigns a responsible party based on the type of complaints.
Responsible parties are Yangon Regional Government (YRG), TSMC, Township Governmental Departments, related departments in One Stop Service Center (OSSC) such as Labour Section, Environment Section, MJTD, Investors, Construction Company or Main Contractor, etc.
The responsible party investigates the complaint and a complainant can be involved in throughout investigation process.
The complaint shall be resolved within 30 days after receiving a complaint. If the complainant accepts a proposed resolution by the responsible party, the agreed actions are implemented. Then the complaint is resolved successfully, and the complaint is closed out. If the complainant does not agree to a proposed resolution by the responsible party, it can be escalated to Complaint Review Board (CRB) for further investigation. The overall procedure of TCMP is as per below.
2. Role of Community Relation Team (CRT)
CRT plays an important role in TCMP as a joint team of TSMC/MJTD and the composition is as per below. CRT has role as (1) internal Thilawa SEZ coordination team, (2) internal and external ‘face’ of TCMP and (3) administrator of the TCMP. Following staff are assigned as CRT member.
Channels For Raising a Complaint
There are several “channels” that can be used by community members to raise or file a complaint with the Thilawa SEZ. These include, but are not limited to:
- In person to an SEZ official visiting the community;
- In person at the SEZ;
- Suggestion boxes (to be established in village tract/ward administrator offices);
- Via Community Focal Points, if community desire;
- In writing to the SEZ; and
- At a community meeting held by SEZ representations, within villages or at the SEZ.
The application format of Complaint Management Form is installed in respective places. The flyer of TCMP and Complaint Management Form has been placed in the village tract and ward general administration offices in project affected communities (PACs) as well as the relocation sites of Zone A and Zone B since November 2017. The sample format of application is as shown below.
For the full documents of the format, please download here
Contact Persons
The TCMP is managed by collaboration of TSMC and MJTD. The Contact persons are shown in the figure below.
