Thailand ‘not hiding’ trillion-baht debt

The finance ministry on April 19 denied it is hiding a public debt worth one trillion baht ($29.6 billion), saying this amount was used as advance payments for subsidy programmes under the Fiscal Disciplines Act.

Fiscal Policy Office director Pornchai Theeravet dismissed an online report claiming that the government was hiding a debt liability of one trillion baht by not declaring the amount under the category of public debt in the state budget.

He explained that the one-trillion-baht figure covered advance payments for the government’s many public subsidy programmes.

He said these advance payments were not listed as a financial liability, but that the finance ministry had clearly summed up the payments and reported the amount.

Pornchai said the total advance payments made were still within the framework of 30 per cent of the annual budget as stipulated in Section 28 of the 2018…