Help for handout hopefuls

Application mistakes are fixable, FPO says

The Finance Ministry will let registrants for the 5,000-baht cash handout either rectify their information or cancel requests for the subsidy to help them avoid breaching the law on providing false information, says the Fiscal Policy Office (FPO).

The ministry is in discussions with Krungthai Bank, the registration system provider, to allow the cash giveaway’s applicants to correct their information or call off their request for the cash handout through the Raomaithingkun (“Nobody will be left behind”) website, said Lavaron Sangsnit, the FPO’s director-general.

In the event that registrants still fail to correct their information, the Finance Ministry will consider them in breach of the law, he said.

Mr Lavaron’s comments came after nearly 22 million people applied for the financial aid to ease the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, significantly higher than the 3 million earlier estimated by the ministry.

Under the government’s assistance scheme, those who qualify for the cash giveaway are contract employees and the self-employed who are not covered by the Social Security Act’s Section 33 and have been ravaged by the epidemic. They must be age 18 or older.

Mr Lavaron said the information correction function should be available on the website by this week.

The information of the first 500,000 registrants is to be completely checked within seven to eight days after registration opened on March 28.

The number of cash handout registrants far exceeds the earlier forecast, so the examination process must be done gradually and in coordination with other state agencies, Mr Lavaron said.

Government spokeswoman Narumon

Pinyosinwat said recently that 9 million people out of 21.7 million who registered would be eligible for the 5,000-baht handout granted by the government.

The total cost to the government of the coverage will now be 135 billion baht, up from 45 billion baht previously approved by the cabinet. The first of three tranches of payments will be made later this month.