Thailand
Thailand: Finance Ministry to close handout registration this week
The Finance Ministry plans to close registration for the monthly 5,000-baht cash handout scheme this week as review of appeals submitted by rejected registrants is almost complete.
As of May 12, 14.2 million applicants already passed the criteria to receive the aid money, while 98-99% of the appeals are expected to be completely reviewed by Sunday, said Lavaron Sangsnit, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office.
Finance Minister Uttama Savanayana recently said 16 million registrants are either approved to receive the subsidy or are in the final screening process.
The 5,000-baht cash handout scheme is part of relief measures directed at those affected by the coronavirus pandemic and containment measures.
The allowance is given for three months, from April to June, to temporary workers, contract employees and self-employed workers who are not covered by the Social Security Fund’s Section 33.
There were as many as 28.8 million registrants, but 4.4 million repeat applicants had been removed as of midnight of April 22 when the application period ended.
Of the 24 million applicants, 1.7 million were rejected because they failed to complete the registration process.
Of the 22.3 million applicants who passed the ID authentication process, 16 million were either approved to receive the subsidy or are in the final screening process, and the remaining 6.3 million were rejected.
Mr Lavaron has repeatedly said the Finance Ministry will not leave behind the 1.7 million applicants denied because of an incomplete registration process and it is seeking appropriate ways to help them.
Incomplete registration could include misspelled names or providing erroneous citizen ID numbers, he said.
The main problem for those who passed the screening process but have yet to receive the money is accounts provided by them have co-signers, belong to cousins or are frozen due to inactivity of more than a year, said Mr Lavaron.
The best way to ensure an applicant will receive the cash is to provide a bank account linked to PromptPay with an ID number, he said.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1917740/finance-ministry-to-close-handout-registration-this-week