Kittiratt's 'white lies' did not get Yingluck's okay
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Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday defended Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong for his admission that he sometimes had to lie about the national economy to boost confidence.
The premier said she had faith in Kittiratt, who is also deputy prime minister in charge of the government’s economic team, and believed he had good intentions toward the country despite his remark last week.
However, she denied that she allowed Kittirat’s “white lies” about economic figures.
“There has been no such order. Who would order him to do that? All the numbers were real,” Yingluck said.
And when asked if she had allowed the foreign minister to lie on certain issues, she said: “There was no such thing”.
Last Thursday, Kittiratt admitted that sometimes he had to exaggerate about the country’s economic growth even though the government had been fully aware since early this year that the global economic slowdown was likely to affect Thailand.
“But [the government] |must aim high in order to create confidence,” he said. “The finance minister needs to |lie sometimes to create good feelings. The world knows this as a ‘white lie’. As leader of |the government’s economic team, I’m allowed to tell white lies. The goal is to create confidence, which in turn benefits the country’s economy as a whole,” he said.
His move came after the National Economic and Social Development Board, the state planning agency, revised its forecast for export growth down to 7.3 per cent this year due to a slump in the global economy compared to the government’s earlier projection of a 15-per-cent increase.
Yingluck yesterday blamed the weak export growth on “uncertainties in the European market”, adding that her government had now revised its export growth target to between 8 and 9 per cent.
When asked yesterday if she would call on Kittiratt to take responsibility for his remark, the prime minister responded playfully: “Don’t publish his news.”
