Thailand anxiously awaits decrees' ratification
Thailand anxiously awaits decrees' ratification
BANGKOK (Reuters): The Thai government is anxiously awaiting
ratification of four controversial financial decrees in
parliament today to arm itself with more powers to speedily
resuscitate the comatose economy.
The lower House of Representatives is expected to meet today
for a special sitting to ratify the urgent decrees following a
constitutional court ruling on Saturday that the decrees approved
by the cabinet of premier Chuan Leekpai last month were legal.
The ratification will empower the government to raise US$18
billion in foreign and domestic bonds, raise its foreign
borrowing ceiling, enable it to undertake much-needed financial
reforms and break a severe domestic liquidity squeeze.
They need to be ratified quickly so that the cabinet at its
weekly meeting tomorrow will be in a position to incorporate them
into a fourth letter of intent to be agreed with the
International Monetary Fund.
The letter, which is to be presented to the IMF board on June
10, would enable the disbursement of another $800 million from
the $17.2 billion bail-out package.
"We hope the decrees will be voted today, but whether there
will be another political accident again tomorrow is yet to be
seen," said premier Chuan.
The opposition, which has said it accepts the court's ruling
on the decrees, said the decrees helped the business elite at the
expense of taxpayers and the poor.
Analysts and businessmen said the government's problems in
getting the decrees ratified signaled the start of an uphill
battle in coming months as the economic crisis deepened, bringing
higher unemployment and corporate bankruptcies.
The analysts said that the government would have to spend time
and effort in explaining to the public that the measures, which
involved hefty borrowing, were not engineered to save the rich at
the expense of the poor.
"I think the government is taking the right steps in
addressing the problem," said Somphob Manarangsan, an economic
professor at Chulalongkorn University.
"But it has done a terribly poor job in informing the poor and
the unprivileged about the cost and returns on these measures and
on how these painful steps can help these people," he said.
Analysts also said a most valuable lesson learnt from the
latest controversy over the decrees was that the government
needed to be more in touch with the masses.
Prominent social critic Thirayuth Boonmee sparked an intense
public debate this week when he criticized the government's plan
to use some of the money raised to finance bailouts of failed
financial institutions.
Thailand's worst financial turmoil in decades forced the
closure of 56 debt-ridden finance firms last year. This week the
central bank took over another seven ailing finance firms.
Earlier this year, the Bank of Thailand also nationalized four
insolvent commercial banks, raising broad public suspicion that
taxpayers' money would be used to shoulder private debt burdens.
Premier Chuan denied the allegations by critics.
"I would like to stress that we are not giving priority to the
rich. We are not helping the rich but trying to make the business
sector survive so that they can retain their employees," he said.