BANGKOK, Thailand: The Thai government will give more money to the rural poor to jump-start the economy, the prime minister said Sunday, adopting and expanding a much-criticized key program of ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he planned to double government spending in the program that provides grants to poor villages as part of a stimulus package. Abhisit’s Democrat Party had previously decried the program as a brazen attempt at buying the loyalty of the country’s poor majority.
The government will also step up recruitment of college graduates for government jobs to offset rising unemployment and move ahead with plans to offer millions of low-income residents a one-time payment of 2,000 baht ($57), Abhisit said in a televised address.
"The fire is burning fiercely in the house, so we cannot be too economical on the water we use for putting out the blaze," he said.
Abhisit took office in December in a parliamentary vote after a court dissolved the pro-Thaksin party that finished first 2007 elections. He has made fixing the economy a priority, and last week his Cabinet approved a 115 billion baht ($3.3 billion) economic stimulus package.
He said a portion of that stimulus package would go toward reviving and expanding a village initiative launched by Thaksin, who was removed in 2006 in a bloodless military coup. Under the popular scheme, government grants were provided for infrastructure projects such as repairing roads and digging irrigation canals.
By embracing the initiative, Abhisit is tacitly acknowledging Thaksin’s electoral prowess. And with an eye on remaining in power through the 2011 elections, the village initiative is likely to be a key component in the Democrats’ campaign strategy.
Thailand’s export-driven economy has been hit hard by the global slowdown as well as months of political unrest last year that scared off foreign investors and tourists.
Abhisit said the handouts would boost the buying power of poor consumers while the government employment scheme would ensure new graduates are not left idle.
"We will find work for them in administrative posts at schools and in helping police monitor illegal Web sites," the prime minister said. He did not say how many new graduates would be hired nor how much the government would spend on its village initiative.
The Bank of Thailand estimates that November’s weeklong blockade of Bangkok’s two main airports by protesters calling for the removal of a government packed with Thaksin’s allies cost the country 290 billion baht ($8.3 billion). It said the shutdown would deter at least 3.4 million tourists from visiting the country.
Thailand’s economy — Southeast Asia’s second-largest — is likely to grow as little as 0.5 percent this year because of declining exports and weak domestic demand, the central bank said earlier this month.
