Army, Treasury sign MoU on state property businesses

MONDAY, February 17, 2020

Army Chief General Apirat Kongsompong and Treasury Department director-general Yuttana Yimgarund signed a memorandum of understanding this morning (February 17) to make sure the use of state property in businesses for Royal Thai Army (RTA) welfare complies with the regulations, RTA Chief of Staff General Teerawat Boonyawat said.

The Office of the Prime Minister’s regulation allows the management of official welfare to apply for state property for two types of businesses – regular business such as gas stations, shops and markets, and special business such as boxing rings, golf courses, hippodromes and rehabilitation centres for the Army.

Part of the revenue from the businesses would be considered rent and Treasury Department fees, and the rest would be handed over to the RTA welfare fund.
“What the Army has done today is to bring back legitimacy,” Teerawat said “It will be transparent and can be inspected. After we pay the Treasury Department, the remaining money will belong to the Army’s welfare fund to support soldiers’ families.”
Finance permanent secretary Prasong Poontaneat said the army had about a million rai of land that the Treasury Department would manage and confirmed that the money would not directly return to the Army, but the cost which the Army had to pay would be lower.
The RTA previously asked the department to help solve the problem of 700,000 rai of state property being occupied, by making a three-year rental contract which will control unregulated occupancy and increase the country’s income.