Move Forward deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakul
Move Forward party-list MP and deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakul said today that the government’s decision to procure loans to fund the digital wallet scheme is risky, because it may violate the Constitution and the Fiscal Discipline Act.
Responding to Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s announcement of new guidelines for the scheme, she said that the government has chosen the most difficult path by deciding on the issuance of a Loan Bill to procure funding, knowing that there is no urgency to justify the borrowing, citing the case of the two trillion baht loan bill of a previous government, which was struck down by the Constitutional Court.
She said that she suspects that the government might, in reality, want the scheme to be scrapped, because it has reached a dead end when trying to find the money to fund it and decided on a risky path through the issuance of a loan bill.
The Move Forward MP also admitted that she has no idea how the government came to the conclusion that people who earn more than 70,000 baht per month would not be eligible to receive the 10,000 baht benefit.
She said that she does not want to raise the issue with the Constitutional Court, but would like the government first to seek advice from the Council of State, about whether it is permissible for the government to issue a loan bill to procure funding for the scheme.