Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s coalition government has made a crucial change to its flagship scheme, a digital wallet project aiming to distribute 10,000 baht (US$270) to 50 million Thais. The government has switched from borrowing funds, which faced severe criticism and raised concerns about possible violations of financial and fiscal discipline regulations, to using money from the annual expenditure budget.
The digital wallet project, requiring a hefty budget of 500 billion baht (US$ 13.5 billion), will be financed from three sources. The 2025 fiscal budget will provide 153 billion baht (US$4 billion), 172 billion baht (US$4.6 billion) will come from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) under Section 28 of the State Fiscal and Financial Discipline Act, and the remaining 175 billion baht (US$4.7 billion) from the…
