Passenger van operators want PM to help freeze car instalments for 3-6 months

[webfact]

Passenger van operators want PM to help freeze car instalments for 3-6 months

 

 

Operators of passenger vans, offering services between Bangkok and its suburbs, have asked the government to negotiate with financial institutions to grant them a debt moratorium, of three to six months, because they cannot afford their monthly instalments.

 

Mr. Panya Lertngim, president of the Passenger Van Operators Association, said this morning (Tuesday) that he and other association members will submit a petition today, addressed to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, seeking his help in easing the financial burden of about 24,000 baht per month, which they are contracted to pay to leasing companies.

 

He claimed that a passenger van operator now earns an average of 100-200 baht per day, because there are hardly any passengers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that many passengers have switched to the Green Line electric train service, between Mo Chit and Khoo Khot via Saphan Mai, which has been operating a trial run free of charge.

 

Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/passenger-van-operators-want-pm-to-help-freeze-car-instalments-for-3-6-months/

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2021-01-12

 

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[bdenner]

Can use your spare time to take on some road safety training and see your phsyc about driver mentality!

[Geoffggi]

Good chance to get some of them off the road for good ......

[spidermike007]

Help the people. Do something. Just do not do what you are doing, which is nothing. Millions need help. The excuse I keep hearing is that they do not want to add to the debt. It is ok to add to the debt to spend tens of billions on useless submarines. But to add to the debt to help the people during a crisis? I guess that is not enough of a priority. 

 

My question is this. If the extremely toxic and dangerously timid army are unwilling to take any risks whatsoever, with regard to Covid, why are they spending 22-40 billion baht on submarines? Obviously there is some risk in operating subs, and even more risk if as they say, they are purposed to protect against terrorist threats and any threat in the South China Sea. The real budget is more like 13 billion baht for the first S26T Yuan Class sub, that was due in 2013. And the real cost for the subsequent two? 

Thai naval forces have not operated submarines for over 60 years now, while neighboring countries, particularly those with a major dispute at sea with Thailand, such as Vietnam, are all equipped with modern submarines. Looks like they are willing to take a huge risk with the treasury. Why so timid with Covid? This government is a whirlpool of conflicting loyalties and interests. It's leader has to manage those interests, and effectively buy the loyalties of the various parts of the armed forces. The submarines are the price he has to pay for the navy supporting him. They will end up unusable and unaffordable, as did the aircraft carrier. There is no strategic justification for the submarines. There is really no military threat to Thailand, none of the countries with which it shares a land border have the capacity for anything other than the occasional cross border firefight. If you look carefully at all the military procurement of recent years, they are all to support ambitions, and thus buy the support of the various rival groups within the armed forces. They simply do not add up to any sort of a coherent modernisation or re-equipment of what remains a largely obsolete, immobile and under trained force, able only to undertake the most mundane of garrison duties, whilst it's bloated leadership occupies itself with playing politics or their own largely unregulated business ventures.

The government however (or more realistically those to whom it reports) must rely upon the military to keep it in power. It was put into power for one core function; to prevent the nascent political, social and economic liberalisation of Thai society which arose with the arrival of new technologies and communications, which have allowed a (younger) population which has long been kept ill educated and dependent for any advancement on its elders and sponsors, to communicate, educate themselves and develop business independent of those elders and sponsors. The Covid crisis is in a dimension beyond that, and it's timid, chaotic "rabbit in the headlights" response to the challenges it brings are simply because it does not know how to react, other than to use some of the opportunities to exercise power, in pursuit of that core function, which the social and political restrictions they argue the disease has necessitated give them.

The tourist industry was largely beyond the scope of those to whom it owes its loyalty (existence). they neither understand nor are interested in it. The same holds for the fate of those whose livelihoods and businesses have been damaged or destroyed by the reaction to Covid. They can, as we cynically joke, always" go back to their farms".

Whether the younger generation(s) will meekly accept their lot, now they have tasted the opportunity to communicate, educate themselves and develop business, we shall see. Let us hope after the latest wave is over, the youth take to the streets, and continue hammering this insipid leadership, until they eventually resign.