Govt warned against getting loans to fund digital wallet project

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

THE PHEU THAI-LED GOVERNMENT was today (Oct.26) cautioned against a possible issuance of an executive decree to borrow loans to finance their digital wallet project.

Move Forward MP Sirikanya Tansakul said the government could be legally allowed to borrow loans only in case of emergency or necessity under which the Pheu Thai populist handout campaign is not categorised.

Unlike the loans earlier borrowed by a previous government to fund measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic over the last few years, the current government’s 10,000-baht digital wallet project cannot be financed by loans as far as the constitution and rules of law are concerned, according to the opposition lawmaker.

Neither does the project primarily have grounds for use on the basis of emergency or necessity, she said.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and the Pheu Thai-led government would certainly be prone to dissent and lambaste if they managed to borrow a loan to finance such a handout project, she said.

Her comments apparently followed those recently made by Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat that the project will not be financed by the Government Savings Bank as speculated by critics and will instead be funded by the government’s annual budget for the current fiscal year.

Julapun who chairs a government subcommittee on the digital wallet project said the handout campaign is subject to change and put to work suitably and feasibly by curtailing its cost earlier calculated to total 560 billion baht.

The deputy finance minister said “the well-to-do” might not be entitled to the sum of 10,000 baht in digital wallet each so that the government could find enough money to fund it without needing to borrow from the state-owned bank or other financial sources thus possibly leading to the number of eligible recipients sizably reduced from 56 million to a range of 43 to 49 million nationwide.

Those who earn a minimum of 25,000 baht in monthly pay or have a minimum of 100,000 baht in bank deposit or those who earn a minimum of 50,000 baht in monthly pay or have a minimum of 500,000 baht in bank deposit might probably be denied the 10,000-baht handout, according to the deputy finance minister.

But the Move Forward MP commented the government will certainly not have roughly as much as 400-plus billion baht budget to fund the project even if “the well-to-do” are finally denied.

These alternatives designed to trim the project’s estimated cost are yet to be forwarded to the prime minister who concurrently acts as head of a government committee handling the project.

CAPTION:

Move Forward MP Sirikanya Tansakul. Top photo: Matichon Weekly, Front Page photo: Matichon

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