No holiday and not to declare state of emergency on floods
The Cabinet on Tuesday rejected a holiday proposal from tomorrow to Friday in light of the floods and ruled out the state of emergency for fear of causing panic among foreign visitors.
The government has also approved Bt2 billion emergency spending for the evacuation of flood victims.
Before attending the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra dismissed speculation that the government was about to declare a national holiday in order to deal with the floods.
“I don’t support the idea of holiday since the government needs the civil servants to work and tackle flood-related issues,” she said.
In case of a holiday, there would be no officials to distribute relief supplies to flood victims, she said.
Echoing Yingluck, Interior Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit said the government would neither declare the holiday nor the state of emergency.
Yongyuth said the government did not see the justification to impose the emergency rule on the floods.
He also called on the civil servants to step up their work in helping flood victims. Those officials faced with flooding at their homes could take a leave of absent to help out their family before resuming their relief duty, he said.
