Prayut appeals to the 20 richest Thais for help

By The Nation

 

In a nationally televised speech, Prayut calls on the 20 richest people in Thailand to help the government in its fight against Covid-19.

 

In a special 10-minute speech broadcast on national TV at 6pm on Friday (April 17), Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha called on Thailand’s 20 richest people to step up and help the government in its fight against the Covid-19 outbreak. 

 

Prayut said he will next week write an open letter to the 20 tycoons, asking for help in efforts to tackle the pandemic, which he said has become a deadly threat to people’s health and economic wellbeing.

 

Commending them for the contributions they have already made, Prayut said more was needed in terms of ideas and resources. He also said that he will meet business associations of all sizes to hear their views personally. 

 

The prime minister also called on people to stand in unity with the government, without the division of colour, apparently referring to the deep red- and yellow-shirt divide in society. 

 

Though he did not mention the top richest of Thailand by name, they include CP’s Chearavanont family, Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, the Chirathiwat family, Gulf Energy Development’s CEO Sarath Ratanavadi, Bangkok Dusit Medical Services and Bangkok Airways founder Prasert Prasarttong-Osoth, the Osathanugrah family, and BTS Group Holdings chairman Keeree Kanjanapas.

 

Prayut’s speech came as the Public Health Ministry, related agencies and the private sector work on developing a lockdown exit strategy as the night-time curfew comes to an end on April 30 and the number of confirmed infections is on a downward trend. There were just 28 new cases as of Friday, bringing Thailand's total Covid-19 cases up to 2,700.

 

People have been floating ideas about the reopening of some businesses such as department stores and hair-dressing salons. 

 

The Public Health Ministry has come up an exit strategy in which a Covid-19 safety certificate will be given to business owners who agree to strictly follow preventive measures and social-distancing tactics, such as requiring customers to wear masks at all times and limiting the number of clients being serviced. 

 

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has also issued six guidelines for countries preparing to ease lockdown restrictions.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30386266

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-04-17

 

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Thaksin is back so maybe he can hit him up for a few baht!  ????

2 minutes ago, Grumpy John said:

Thaksin is back so maybe he can hit him up for a few baht!  ????

Give him a break mate, he just spent a fortune on Thaksin Hand Sanitizer for the Isaan natives.. 

11 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha called on Thailand’s 20 richest people to step up and help the government

on one hand you can justify this (inequality) but it tacitly effaces the incompetent government here , run by rich people benefitting from corruption their whole lives

Who are the other 19 ?

7 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

on one hand you can justify this (inequality) but it tacitly effaces the incompetent government here , run by rich people benefitting from corruption their whole lives

the idiot should have kickstarted the whole process by saying:' i am donating 10,000,000 baht...'

Get General FATSO to sell some of his watches.????

Proper gallows humour at last.

Someone is having a proper laugh

Hold on for a moment.

If the country are so rich, has so much reserves as we been told times after times, and the virus are on a downward trend why the need to Beg the 20 richest families for "resources" also known as money?

 

Can't afford to pay 5k for three months, rush open society 1 May, against the trends of many countries who extend lockdown, a lot doesn't make sense here.

I already disabled my western logic and common sense, still I look like this

 

Utterly pathetic. They love to be all tough and authoritarian when they’re dealing with simple problems or problems they don’t need to be getting involved with personally. Acting like they know everything and should never be questioned. But when it comes to real problems, they always pass the buck and think by being disingenuous they can weasel their way out of their responsibilities. 
 

Gutless and feckless children failing at acting like adults. 

Did he promise bailouts for the top companies but forgot about the people and already spent the next 20 years worth of budget?
No prob just borrow the money back from them!

Why the need to appeal ? Surely the Supreme Commander can simply order them .

35 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

Prayut said he will next week write an open letter to the 20 tycoons, asking for help

He might have better luck asking Captain Tom to do a few extra laps of his garden ...

 

A comment discussing the Monarchy has been removed. If you post, reply to, quote or add an emoji to similar comments you will receive a posting holiday.

Fire up the money printing press.  Baht such high value anyways.

Looks like beer's back on then. I also wonder how many of his Mercs he's going to sell. Missus told me he's got 10+. Also have a suggestion. Maybe he could get his little fat mate to sell a few things.

 

 

14 minutes ago, SidJames said:

Proper gallows humour at last.

Someone is having a proper laugh

 

           Gold finger....

lets review the last week or so on the topic of Government funds

 

- we had the announcement of money for people facing hardship and it grossly underestimated how many people would be applying by millions

 

- next we had millions rejected and protests followed

 

- next under pressure from protests they agreed to pay out most of the applicants 

 

- then we had Prayuth stating that the country could not afford the pay and they could only afford one pay out for one month

 

- on the same day they announced a suddenly that the lockdowns were going to finish end of April (in other words they are looking to avoid prolonged handouts

 

Now the Thai government are begging for donations from the 20 richest people in Thailand ?????

 

I don't know what anyone else concludes from this but I for one get the impression Thailand has no money - at least nothing near what they claim to have.

 

As I have said already several times - they think ending the lockdown is somehow going to relieve any financial pressure - well it won't, the millions they cannot afford to pay 5k a month are not going back to work any time soon lockdown or not

 

Thailand is going to have to step up to support these people and support the businesses that are in dire straights or have already gone to the wall.

 

and if they think that ending the lockdown is going to see a flood of tourists to come to the rescue - they are deluded, the smelly dirty farangs will not be back here for at least 12 months ...................if ever after the disgusting comments from a certain Deputy Prime Minister, an outburst at western tourists and also other constant racist comments directed toward westerners 

Top trending hashtag #รัฐบาลขอทาน = Government begging 
Already 153k Tweets

Missing the income generated from  alcohol taxation are we? Shame...

23 minutes ago, smedly said:

I don't know what anyone else concludes from this but I for one get the impression Thailand has no money - at least nothing near what they claim to have.

Sucked out and left to dry. I reckon now we know why the baht was so high. Thanks for all the fish, toodeloo.

They have soon many this kind restaurant in Pattaya! Coz only tourist what they see is from up north! Like smedly say!

1 hour ago, Grumpy John said:

Thaksin is back so maybe he can hit him up for a few baht!  ????

At least Thaksin helped the poor, cant say the same to this one who's in office.

1 minute ago, time2093 said:

At least Thaksin helped the poor, cant say the same to this one who's in office.

Wrong.  Thaksin tried to bribe the rural population in exchange for their votes.  Most of them are modest land owners by the way, so not really poor, the people in high rise apartments in BKK are looking fairly poor at the moment.

50 minutes ago, Jessi said:

Get General FATSO to sell some of his watches.????

Sorry mate, not on my watch!      

14 hours ago, BeltAndRoad said:

Wrong.  Thaksin tried to bribe the rural population in exchange for their votes.  Most of them are modest land owners by the way, so not really poor, the people in high rise apartments in BKK are looking fairly poor at the moment.

LOl....... I live in Issan and can assure you that even land owners here are struggling to live these days beyond any hi so living in a high rise in Bangkok......Don't think it was the old General Prayut who introduced Thailand's poor to the 30 bht universal medical scheme was it.

9 minutes ago, BeltAndRoad said:

Wrong.  Thaksin tried to bribe the rural population in exchange for their votes.  Most of them are modest land owners by the way, so not really poor, the people in high rise apartments in BKK are looking fairly poor at the moment.

Can not say that, most were  poor people, and not many modest land owners now, most not very well at all landowners, he brought in the 30 baht medical service ,money for people over 60,money for the handicapped ,only doing what our western country did 50-80 years ago.

If they were bribes why are they still in place after 12 years plus ,successive governments still  trying to bribe the poplars 

What about the unusually wealthy will they be giving anything back PM????

No need to stop at 20 names.   Demand rich people pay their proper taxes and you will not need to request charity from them!  Panama papers.

'Names of 1,413 persons with Thai addresses have been identified with links to offshore companies in one of the world’s biggest ever data leaks.'

The Panama papers found many Thai familiar names as seen on the website offshoreleaks.icij.org

This was from 2016.  No doubt some new folks with uniforms since then, some even benefitting from Army Welfare housing.