Govt needs to keep volunteer spirit alive

We have witnessed probably the largest operation of volunteers in our history during the most severe flooding in decades.
While we have suffered from the inundation, which has hit more than 3 million people hard, we also appreciate the spirit of cooperation among people during this natural disaster.
Several million people may have been involved in some kind of volunteer work this time, donating money and goods. Many offered their labour, filling sandbags, packaging life-support bags, distributing goods and rescuing victims from flood-hit areas.
Some have joined in building new canals such as Klong Pradit in western Bangkok to drain water into the sea. There are large numbers of communities that automatically organised to help themselves or others.
This volunteer effort helped a lot, as the government and military have limited manpower, financing and other resources to cope with such a devastating disaster.
Looking forward to the post-crisis period, the key is how we can sustain the momentum of this volunteer spirit, as we still have a lot of work to do to recover households, businesses and public infrastructure and to build new infrastructure to prevent or mitigate future disasters.
The government has budgeted about Bt300 billion out of the total 2012 fiscal expenditure plan of Bt2.38 trillion to address natural disasters, while the Finance Ministry estimates that soft loans by state-run and commercial banks and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation will amount to Bt325 billion. Many doubt that such an amount will be enough, and lawmakers have debated the issue over the past few weeks.
For example, each household affected by inundation will get Bt5,000 compensation, which is too small compared with the damage, as many were not able to move refrigerators, washing machines, furniture and other belongings to higher ground.
In the spirit of volunteerism, many groups are prepared to provide free or low-cost services to fix electrical appliances or make home repairs.
By searching the Internet, one can find many volunteer groups, such as technicians offering to fix Samsung appliances.
Some government officials estimate that Bt900 billion will be needed over next few years for flood recovery and prevention measures.
Meanwhile Virabongsa Ramangkula, recently appointed by the government as chief of a strategic committee for flood recovery, indicated that a large amount of investment was needed and the government might need to draw funds from the international reserves managed by the Bank of Thailand.
For his part, central bank Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul suggested that the government raise funds in the domestic market via baht-denominated bonds.
Finance Minister Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala has suggested increasing taxes. That is probably the reasonable way to raise public funds. But politicians – particularly in the governing coalition led by the Pheu Thai Party – are afraid of the impact this would have on their popularity.
The likely option is borrowing more money. The Cabinet last week increased a borrowing plan of about Bt300 billion, largely to support its populist rice-subsidy scheme. Yet such populist policies as the first-car and first-home schemes and wage hikes will to some extent limit the government’s capacity to manage the flooding crisis.
Another option is for the government to seek cooperation from people, business and investors. If it is smart, it will seek to capitalise on the volunteer spirit.
For example, communities, private firms and business groups could be asked to participate in financing the construction of water barriers, such as each firm or community put in charge of building a kilometre of barriers along key riverbanks.
Yet the spirit of cooperation could be hurt by government actions. Many have accused it of mismanaging the crisis.
Some are unhappy with its insistence on implementing its populist polices, which they say indicates that it has failed to identify what the priorities are in a time of disaster.
The recent move towards pardoning former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra from serving a prison term for corruption may spook large numbers of volunteers or, even worse, turn them into enemies of the government.
The great challenge facing the government is finding a way to maintain the momentum of the spirit of cooperation, which has potential to bring in more funds, labour and intangible assets such as confidence in social, political and economic affairs.