Government drops off-budget loan plan to fund for digital wallet scheme

The new solution would allow the government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin to have money in time for handing out 10,000 baht to some 50 million eligible recipients in the fourth quarter of this year.

Initially, the government had planned to issue a bill to borrow an off-budget loan of 500 billion to finance the handout, which was initially scheduled for next month.

But key government agencies, including the Office of the Council of State and the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, had voiced concern that the economic situation was not serious enough to warrant such a huge off-budget loan.

According to the well-informed Government House source, the scheme would be implemented with the budgets for two fiscal years – 2024 and 2025. Fiscal 2025 starts on October 1.

The source said the first amount of 100 billion to 150 billion baht would come from the central emergency fund provided in the fiscal 2024 budget and the rest would be allocated in the fiscal 2025 budget bill.

The source noted that the central fund of fiscal 2024 was allocated 606.765 billion baht, which is directly under the authority of the prime minister.

The source added that the fiscal 2025 budget bill had been postponed from the Cabinet deliberation by one week as the Finance Ministry and Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council wanted to increase the deficit target from 713 billion baht by 20 billion baht.

The increase in the deficit target would allow the government to borrow some on-budget loans to finance the rest of money required for the digital wallet scheme.

The Budget Bureau and the Finance Ministry assured the Cabinet that the fiscal 2025 budget bill would be enacted in time before fiscal 2025.

The fiscal 2025 budget bill has proposed total spending of 3.6 trillion baht, up 100 billion baht over the previous year. The bill targets revenue of 2.887 trillion baht.

The proposed spendings are divided into:

- 2.713 trillion baht for fixed expenditure

- 118.36 billion baht for offsetting the treasury reserves

- 742.3 billion baht for investments

- 144 billion baht for loan repayments.

On Tuesday, Srettha declined to give more details of the digital wallet scheme after Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat announced the money would reach recipients by the fourth quarter.

Srettha told reporters to wait for a formal announcement by the national digital wallet committee.

While saying the money would be remitted in the fourth quarter, Julapun said the sources of the funding had not been finalised yet. It would be finalised by the full digital wallet committee on April 10.

“After April 10, everything would be clear. I hereby affirm that the government would go ahead with the scheme and the money would reach the people within this year,” Julapun said.

He said the scheme would not be exactly what Pheu Thai had promised during the election campaign, because the project now belonged to the entire coalition government, not just the Pheu Thai.

He said the government had to lower the number of recipients from 54 million to 50 million because the government had to heed the opinion of all sides.

Under the new criteria, eligible recipients must be 16 years old with monthly income less than 70,000 baht a month and bank deposits less than 500,000 baht.