Finance Ministry staff told to help solve complaints over Bt5,000 handouts

The Finance Ministry building in Bangkok has been the scene of daily protests by people whose applications for the relief handouts were rejected.
Thanakorn explained that of the total 22.3 million people who had applied for the monthly payments, 6.25 million had been turned down because they were eligible to receive government aid via other measures.
“Of those 6.25 million people, 4.2 million are eligible for farmers’ handouts, 1.1 million are civil servants and insurers who can receive compensation from the Social Security Office, and 950,000 have withdrawn their applications,” he explained.
“Therefore, only 16.05 million people are eligible, of whom 10.6 million have been approved [for the Bt5,000 payments].”
He added that the ministry will deliver payments to all 10.6 million successful applicants by the end of next week.
“However, we instructed staff to take care of people who file complaints at the ministry,” he added. “Meanwhile, we would like to ask people whose applications were turned down to appeal via the online channel only.”
Replying to Pheu Thai Secretary-General Anudith Nakornthap’s proposal that Bt10,000 should be handed out to each of the 27 million people who have applied for the payments, Thanakorn said that figure represented only the number of applications submitted, many of which were repeat applications.