EC to deliberate on power bills subsidy on Thursday

EC chairman Ittiporn Boonpracong said this in response to Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam’s comment that the Cabinet was still waiting for an EC decision on the proposal it sent on May 2.

“The EC has not responded yet,” Wissanu said when asked about an update.

The Cabinet Secretariat had first sent the EC a letter on April 25 asking for a green light for the caretaker government to spend 11.112 billion baht from the central budget to subsidise household power bills.

However, the EC rejected this under the reasoning that the secretariat had failed to specify the Cabinet resolution in which the subsidy was approved. Hence, it considered the document to be incomplete.

On May 2, the Cabinet resolved again to ask the EC for approval of the subsidy, but this time it lowered the spending to 10.464 billion baht.

The caretaker Cabinet is required to seek EC approval for every extra expenditure to prevent indirect vote-buying charges.