Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has pledged to allocate 10 billion baht for projects to promote well-being in line with His Majesty the King’s sufficiency economy principle. He made the promise while presiding over a large public gathering here to pledge allegiance to the monarch on the occasion of his 80th birthday celebrations and show compassion towards southern people affected by the violent insurgency. Gatherings, involving around 50,000 people, took place across the country.
Gen Surayud said the projects would start in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat on March 21, adding every local administration would be able to make disbursements for the projects from the middle of this month. The project is aimed at improving the quality of life for people nationwide through the principles of the King’s self-sufficiency economy.
- Extracted from “PM earmarks B10bn for ‘well-being’“, Bangkok Post, 10 March 2007
4 responses so far ↓
1 Srithanonchai // Mar 10, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Ten billion are no peanuts. The Auditor General might want to get ready to investigate whether this will result in the squandering of public funds for an ill-conceived and implemented pet project. Better start the data gathering now than waiting until everything is done.
2 patiwat // Mar 10, 2007 at 7:10 pm
There were 7254 tambon as of the 2000 census. Spending 10 billion for all of these tambon is equal to about 1.4 million baht each.
Thank you very much, Surayud! This now makes you more of a populist than Thaksin!
Thaksin spent only 1 million baht per tambon, and although some of that was spent on improving “well-being” by buying things like telephones and pickup trucks, much of it was spent on long-term investments.
Bread and circuses, indeed!
3 Srithanonchai // Mar 10, 2007 at 10:41 pm
There are also some 1,158 urban governments and 75 PAO. Will they all receive the same amount of money? Disburse for what? Is there any project framework with a statement concerning the expected benefits? Will there be any monitoring and evaluation? Or will the procedure rather follow what was used during the Miyazawa fund? So far, there seem to be more questions than answers. Hopefully, some more details will be made public soon.
Thaksin spent one million baht of a revolving fund for villages and urban communities, not tambons. Anyway, I am quite certain that an equivalent announcement by Thaksin would have caused an outcry by his “regulars.” Let’s see what will follow on Surayud’s announcement.
4 Sawarin // Mar 11, 2007 at 3:04 am
Guess where Surayud’s next stop will be after his brief term of administration ended? Backing up by the military, this is a gradual rise of the ‘administrative power’ of the Privy Council.
Now that political parties are in limbo, the concept of democracy is very fragile indeed.
Thailand is, once again, at the mercy of………. (History/God/Capitalist logic/or whatever you’d prefer).
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