By Thai Newsroom Reporters
AS MANY AS 22,000 PEOPLE nationwide have individually claimed in a single day to be owing illicit debt to loan sharks, Sutthipong Juljaroen, undersecretary of interior, confirmed today (Dec.2).
A total of about 22,090 people from all regions of the country yesterday notified the authorities of the illicit, informal debt combinedly amounting to about 935 million baht which they have claimed to be currently owing to loan sharks, Sutthipong said.
The Pheu Thai-led government’s anti-loan sharks campaign practically started yesterday for people to notify the authorities in all the provinces of any illicit, informal debt which may remain unsettled for the time being.
The people may claim to be indebted in illicit fashion by visiting the Ministry of Interior’s Damrongtham Centre or district offices in all the provinces or petitioning online via the ministry’s website.
Many more illicitly-indebted people are expected to follow suit sooner or later, given the government’s anti-loan sharks campaign primarily designed to help them completely settle their debt and see to it that they never get indebted in illegal fashion anymore, according to the undersecretary of interior.
The authorities are acting as mediators for both the loan shark and the debtor to negotiate and compromise with the lowering of the interest rate to the level at which the debtor could pay and finally completely settle their debt, according to Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has earlier advised that the loan shark collect no more than 15% in interest rate per year from the debtor and that those who may already have made installments in excess of their debt’s principal immediately stop paying anymore.
The prime minister, scheduled to officially kick off the anti-loan sharks campaign on the upcoming Friday, has earlier said no less than 50 billion baht in illicit debt is being combinedly borne by the people nationwide.
Meanwhile, three Indian suspected loan sharks were arrested yesterday in Sao Hai district of Saraburi on illegal entry charges, Sutthipong said.
The foreign loan shark suspects had allegedly handed out money to merchants at a local market in return for disproportionately high interest rates, he said.
The arrests of the Indians closely followed petitions filed at Saohai district office by some of the indebted vendors.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: A representative image of debts to loan sharks. Credit: Thai Rath
Insert: Interior undersecretary Sutthipong Juljaroen. Photo: Thai Rath
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