Agriculture Ministry to confiscate Bt15,000 handout given to some civil servants
The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry will confiscate the money some local civil servants received from the ministry’s Bt15,000 cash handout scheme for farmers who have been affected by the Covid-19 crisis.
The scheme aims to provide Bt15,000 to each farming household, which will be paid over three months. A budget of Bt150 billion had been earmarked to cover as many as 10 million households. The scheme is similar to the Finance Ministry’s “Rao Mai Thing Gun” (We Won’t Leave Anyone Behind) scheme to help self-employed people affected by the health situation.
“There have been reports that some local civil servants applied for the scheme and received the money,” ministry permanent secretary Anant Suwannarat said on Monday (June 8). “We followed up on the tip-off and found that it is true. The Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives is cooperating with the ministry, which has submitted the names of the local officials to the Comptroller-General’s Department to confiscate the money and transfer it back to the bank.”
Anant said earlier, on May 22, that a ministry committee had agreed civil servants who have gone into farming as a secondary source of income should not be eligible for the handout, resulting in more than 91,000 registrants being disqualified.