Only a small minority of applications for the monthly support payments during the virus emergency have been approved from a large range of informal workers and self-employed people in the Thai economy to receive the ฿5,000 a month in payouts. Even those approved have been told that payouts must still await further screening before the money is sent.
The Thai government is still screening applicants for the ฿5,000 a month support scheme for the kingdom’s huge black economy and has only approved less than 7% of applicants to date. This was revealed by a senior official at the Ministry of Finance on Thursday.
The Thai government has only so far provisionally approved a small fraction of people for payment of the ฿5,000 monthly allowance for which over 24 million applied when the government website www.เราไม่ทิ้งกัน.com went live at the end of March.
Details were given on Thursday by Lavaron Sangsnit, Director General of the Fiscal Policy Office at the Ministry of Finance.
He revealed that so far, only 1.68 million applicants had been approved for the support scheme.
Huge number of people applied online from March 28th for the government’s support programme
The support package, aimed at informal workers and the self-employed, saw applications from a wide group of people working in Thailand’s grey or informal economy apply from Saturday, March 28th into the first week of April.
Biggest group approved are merchants but only 10% of applicants of this kind were approved
Of the 1.68 million applicants approved, the largest group comprised of 600,000 merchants which represented under 10% of the merchants who applied for the financial supports. 400,000 self-employed people from 1.9 applicants got the green light while 100,000 drivers from 300,000 applicants were successful.
Only 20,000 of 200,000 lottery sellers were approved while less than 6% of freelance workers from 100,000 applicants are scheduled to receive payouts.
The government also approved 10,000 out of 30,000 tourist guides who applied for assistance.
Cheques not yet in the post as more screening is still required by authorities at the Ministry of Finance
However, even for those who are approved, the cheque is not yet in the post.
Mr Lavaron told reporters on Thursday that the screening process for the initiative is not yet complete.
The Thai cabinet in the week following the extraordinary level of interest expressed in the scheme had provisionally agreed to extend the programme approved for 3 million people to twice that figure.
At the time, the prime minister warned anyone receiving payments under false pretences would be doggedly pursued for the money at a later stage.
Further reading:
Huge demand for emergency supports with over 20 million to apply for self employed payments
Scramble to register online for state money as banks close over the weekend to defeat the virus
