By Thai Newsroom Reporters
A MASSIVE PETITION against the Pheu Thai-led government’s 10,000-baht digital wallet project has been submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Chief Ombudsman Somsak Suwansujarit confirmed today (Oct.12) the petition was recently filed by the so-called Universities Network for Thailand’s Reform and has already been accepted by his agency which, he said, will not take it into account until the government has publicly unveiled any detailed plans for the implementation of the questionable project.
The proponents of the petition including more than 130 Chulalongkorn and Thammasat economists and other university academics concluded that the 10,000-baht digital wallet project would practically violate the constitution and laws pertaining to state treasury and financial disciplinary principles and called on the Office of the Ombudsman to forward it over either to the Constitutional Court or Administrative Court to deliver a ruling on it.
But Somsak said his agency would do so only if the populist project was found to be contentious on the most part with respect to the charter or relevant laws.
The petitioners contended that public debt burdens would be unnecessarily passed onto future generations if the Pheu Thai-initiated populist campaign was carried out only to stimulate domestic consumption on a short-term basis.
The opponents charged that the much-heralded digital wallet project could not effectively boost the national economy in the long run whilst social justice would be fundamentally compromised with the rich benefiting as much from it as the poor.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has repeatedly vowed to put the populist project to work for all people at the age of 16 and over nationwide whilst lending an ear to those critics.
The debatable project calculated to cost about 560 billion baht is more or less speculated to be funded by a loan from the Government Savings Bank or by government bonds to be issued by the Pheu Thai-led government whose annual budget for current fiscal year would almost certainly be far from adequate to finance it.
Each and every Thai national aged 16 years or over has been promised under the Pheu Thai electoral campaign earlier this year to receive a sum of 10,000 baht in digital wallet to purchase goods and services within a six-month period and a four-kilometre radius of their registered home.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Chief Ombudsman Somsak Suwansujarit, left, and a banner of the 10,000 baht digital wallet project displayed at a Pheu Thai campaign rally earlier this year.
Front Page: Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin against a backdrop of his 10,000 baht digital wallet scheme. Both photos: Matichon
Also read: Most Esaan people prefer using 10,000-baht digital wallet anywhere: Poll
Over 100 economists air dissent to Pheu Thai-designed digital wallet project
PM reassures digital wallet project will be implemented
Berserk foreigner stabs three tourists in Chiang Mai
35 Thais return from Israel with more airplanes being arrange
Official gets 50 years in jail for wrongful use of official sedan
Low-lying terrains in dozen provinces remain flooded
FEATURE: The fourth generation of Soi Rajakrue figures has quietly come of age
2 Replies to “Massive petition against digital wallet project filed”