Ministry faces public anger over cost of living
Growing Public anger over the rising cost of living is leading to unusual developments at the Commerce Ministry, which is tasked with maintaining domestic price stability.
A woman called the Commerce Ministry’s 1569 hotline on Wednesday and threatened physical violence against the ministry’s permanent secretary Vatchari Vimooktayon, it was disclosed yesterday. An official manning the hotline desk, which fields complaints or tip-offs about product prices, said the mysterious caller also threatened to splash acid on Vatchari.
Earlier this week, when she announced August inflation data, Vatchari insisted that the higher price for cooking gas would only add 0.01 of a percentage point to inflation in the remaining four months of this year.
“It’s just a perception that goods are expensive,” she added.
Her words have been shared widely across social media in the past few days.
Yesterday, the official website of the ministry’s Department of Internal Trade (www.dit.go.th) was hacked by a group called Dz4Hack, represented by a logo showing a penguin. The department later announced that the hacker had not stolen or altered any information.
Public dissent has been growing since September 1, when the cost of cooking gas, expressway tolls and fuel went up simultaneously. The price rises come amid a high household-debt level, which stands at nearly 80 per cent of gross domestic product and has encouraged commercial banks to tighten rules on new loans.
Economic prospects as a whole are also poor, with the export sector, generating 70 per cent of GDP, suffering from weak global demand. Foreign investors have added to the woes by withdrawing massive funds from the Thai capital market.
Wachira Kuntaweethep, assistant director of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce’s Economic and Business Forecasting Centre, said consumers were extremely concerned over the rising cost of living. According to a survey taken by the centre, about 50 per cent of respondents have not yet been affected by the rising household-fuel price, but they expect to feel its impacts within the next month.
Overall, about 62 per cent of respondents said they would be affected by the rising costs of cooking gas, electricity and expressway tolls.
