Sirikanya reveals 3 horrors of the Digital Wallet—A chilling reality

Sirikanya Tansakun, MP and Deputy Leader of the People's Party, posted on her personal Facebook page about the "horror" of the Digital Wallet scheme. 

She posted that after distributing cash twice, depleting nearly 180 billion baht without any economic stimulus effect, the government is now pushing ahead with the real Digital Wallet program. It is expected to be approved by the Economic Stimulus Policy Board this Monday (March 10).

She highlighted three alarming issues:

1. Despite knowing that the first round of cash handouts had no impact on economic stimulation, the government is proceeding with another 150-billion-baht giveaway. The initial two phases of 10,000-baht handouts were ineffective—GDP missed its target, and consumption figures remained stagnant in the four months following the distribution. The Private Consumption Index, which reflects whether people increased spending on food, clothing, and electronics, showed a completely flat trend. If it were a heartbeat monitor, it would resemble that of a deceased person.

" However, the government prioritizes political popularity over economic concerns and stubbornly pushes forward," Sirikanya wrote.

2. The project has failed to meet its timeline, and there is still no clear date for the distribution. The initial promise of a rollout in Q2 now seems unlikely due to ongoing issues among responsible agencies.

Not only are different departments working separately, but they are also shifting responsibilities back and forth. The Digital Government Development Agency (DGA) was tasked with building the payment platform but refuses to operate it, passing the responsibility to the project owner.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES), which officially owns the project, only realized three weeks ago that they would have to run the system—despite having no knowledge, experience, or resources to do so.

The existing system is merely a bare framework capable of creating wallets, recording transactions, and displaying balances.

To function properly, it requires an operator to define rules and conditions in line with policy. However, unresolved issues remain, such as whether refunds can be processed in cases of mistaken transfers or returned goods (currently, the system lacks a refund feature, requiring users to process returns via PromptPay).

Questions also linger about fraud prevention—if a merchant in the first phase commits fraud, will merchants in the second phase be able to cash out? How long will businesses need to wait before redeeming funds? These key operational details remain undecided.

Although DGA is set to complete the system by March, the DES ministry, which lacks personnel, expertise, and budget, is expected to take over its management. Given the circumstances, completing the project within three months is unrealistic—even six months would be a challenge.

3. There isn’t enough money for the full distribution, but the government insists on pushing ahead. Currently, the available budget can only cover 15 million people, while nearly 20 million have registered and are expected to qualify.

If the government doesn’t resort to a lottery system to decide who gets the money, they will have to cut out certain age groups. Stay tuned to see which age groups will be prioritized and which will be excluded.

Meanwhile, those without smartphones or who haven't registered will have to keep waiting to see how they will be accommodated—if at all.

" The current state of the Digital Wallet project is alarming for the public, yet the Prime Minister is still willing to push it through the Economic Stimulus Board. If she insists on forcing it through the Cabinet as well, there are simply no words left to describe the situation," Sirikanya concluded