Protesters blockading Govt Savings Bank, cripple southern provinces administration

[webfact]

Protesters blockading Government Savings Bank, cripple southern provinces administration today
By Digital Content

BANGKOK, Jan 20 – Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban has vowed to lead anti-government protesters to seal off the Government Savings Bank (GSB) today as people in 14 southern provinces are set to paralyse the provincial administrative system.

Mr Suthep said members of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) will close the GSB headquarters to protect depositors’ interest.

The government, which has lost Bt400 billion from the rice pledging scheme, has forced the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperative (BAAC) to finance payment to farmers but the bank refused, he said.

Mr Suthep said the GSB was the government’s next target for financial resources, compelling the PDRC to protect the public’s and depositors’ interest.

Krung Thai Bank was another financial institution warned by the PDRC secretary general against extending loans to the government.

“Let me warn the executives of Krung Thai Bank against serving the Thaksin regime. If they let the government borrow, we will also close it to protect the people’s interest,” he said.

Mr Suthep said Thai people should not pay attention to the government’s planned election on Feb 2 which will definitely not take place.

“Yingluck Shinawatra will never win the election. We will see to it that everything is finished before Feb 2,” he announced.

He said the Shinawatra family must be accountable for yesterday’s bombing at the Victory Monument in which 28 people, five of them women including a reporter of Post Today, the Thai-language newspaper, were injured. Seven of them were in serious condition.

Mr Suthep said caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul was completely irresponsible for saying that the Friday’s bombing at Banthat Thong intersection was triggered by anti-government protesters. Mr Surapong is concurrently chairman of the Centre for the Administration of Peace and Order.

Mr Surapong said yesterday that two PDRC members threw a bomb into protesters who marched with Mr Suthep on Banthat Thong Road on Friday in attempt to create the situation.

He ruled out the necessity of deploying military forces to maintain security at rally sites, insisting that combined police and military personnel have been doing their jobs.

Deputy Metropolitan Police Commander Adul Narongsak condemned the explosion at Banthat Thong as brutal but insisted that the bomb was not thrown onto protesters from a building.

“It is hardly possibly to do that. There are lots of obstructing materials including roadside trees and electrical wires,” he said.

“Footage from closed-circuit and media cameras clearly showed that the bomb could not be hurled from higher ground.” (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2014-01-20

[webfact]

Protesters plan to shut down GSB head office



BANGKOK: -- Anti-government protesters plan to shut down Government’s Savings Bank head office today and mark the state-owned Krung Thai Bank as the possible next target.

Mr Suthep Thaugsuban, secretary-general of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee, told protesters at the Pathumwan protest site on Sunday night that he had received a letter from employees of GSB claiming that the bank’s board might lend money to the government to repay dissenting rice farmers.

The GSB is the piggy bank of children and the elderly so there is a need to protect the bank from the government, said the protest leader, adding that protesters will march to the bank’s head office on Paholyothin road today to shut it down.

He also warned that the Krung Thai Bank could be the next target if the bank’s board agrees to lend the government the needy cash for use to pay the farmers for their harvests pledged under the rice pledging scheme since last October.

Suthep told the audience that, beginning today, protesters in 14 southern provinces would shut down the provincial halls and district offices to render government bureaucracy paralysed.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/protesters-plan-shut-gsb-head-office/


-- Thai PBS 2014-01-20

[Thailand]

Surely banks can move money electronically? So blockading will do what?

[celso]

"The GSB is the piggy bank of children and the elderly so there is a need to protect the bank from the government, said the protest leader, adding that protesters will march to the banks head office on Paholyothin road today to shut it down."

I read this sentence once. I read it twice. Then I blacked out from trying to understand it.

[poisonus]

Surely banks can move money electronically? So blockading will do what?

Yes they can, but considering the Bank president, the employees and the unions are against it, I doubt that will happen.

Also, the government seem to yet again ignoring the constitution which says that any extra budgetary borrowing can not be allowed by a caretaker government unless permission has been given by the EC.

If they take so much as a baht, then the CC will have no other hoice but to dissolve the PTP and indict them all.

Edited January 20, 2014 by poisonus

[MGP]

"The GSB is the piggy bank of children and the elderly so there is a need to protect the bank from the government, said the protest leader, adding that protesters will march to the banks head office on Paholyothin road today to shut it down."

I read this sentence once. I read it twice. Then I blacked out from trying to understand it.

I understand it like this: if the GSB uses the money to pay the debts of the government (debts that are due to the rotten and unsustainable rice pledge scheme) there will be no money to protect children and elderly (health and pensions)

Not complicated

[Scamper]

Not since Bonnie and Clyde has an administration embarked on such a dedicated gambit to loot the banks. And yet, that is what the Yingluck administration - in it's perennial quest to find whatever cash they can horde from the public purse - with understandable resistance from the banks - is doing. It is the final, poetic image of an administration turned gangster - by staging random administerial hold-ups of government institutions. Suthep's move is a very clever one, because it focuses front and centre on the rice scheme and how it is affecting all those who are a vested part of the banking system - in other words, the Thai people themselves. It is the final betrayal of public trust. We are clearly now in the end game of this conflict. The Yingluck administration has lost. Thaskin cousin's, Surapong - is now adopting the tactic of the Syrian regime by saying that atrocities against the people on the streets are actually protesters launching attacks against themselves. And like Syria - this line of attack has the full backing of the police. It is a line that is - despite lacking all sense of credibility and sanity - is being desperately adopted by the red shirt movement, those who apparently support Argentinian tactics, and no one else. No one on the streets, no one in the media, no one in the international media, and no heads of state in any country on the planet.

[davejones]

Surely banks can move money electronically? So blockading will do what?

Blockading them would put pressure on them I assume and make them think extra hard about moving the moment. I assume that's what they're trying to do, not physically block the movement of money.

[whybother]

Stupid. The government already can't pay. This just gives the government an excuse as to why they can't.

[Briggsy]

Suthep is trying to ratchet up the pressure on public sector employees, in this case GSB management, to try to stop them co-operating with ministers. He is showing his force to the bank and trying to get the bank management on his side. A previous poster said "money can be moved electronically". This is of course correct but only if approval for the transfer is obtained.

Overall Suthep's plan is to paralyse the levers of government thus making government completely ineffective forcing the government to compromise.

In the past we have had a military coup against Thaksin.

This was followed by a judicial coup against Thaksin.

Now it is the turn of a civil service coup against Thaksin.

This will complete the traditional triumvirate of powers that always come together to remove the elected representatives.

When this one runs out of steam, one presumes they will go back to the beginning and restart with military coups again.

[AryanicAristocrat]

The GSB bank is one of the most corrupted bank, I have personally witnessed senior bank employee (Husband and wife both works at the main branch of the GSB Bank at Pahoyothin) and were usisng their own powers to get loans to buy more than 5 units at Lumpini Saphakwai. Normal depositors find it hard to get loans whereas many of the senior staff at the bank use their powers to finance the purchases of volumes of real estate for themselves. A check should be conducted on the bank employees and their families to see these things.

[WhizBang]

The GSB bank is one of the most corrupted bank, I have personally witnessed senior bank employee (Husband and wife both works at the main branch of the GSB Bank at Pahoyothin) and were usisng their own powers to get loans to buy more than 5 units at Lumpini Saphakwai. Normal depositors find it hard to get loans whereas many of the senior staff at the bank use their powers to finance the purchases of volumes of real estate for themselves. A check should be conducted on the bank employees and their families to see these things.

Since this is Thailand, I highly doubt that GSB officials are the only ones doing this. You might want to widen your investigation to the personnel of all banks and certainly all politicians. Might as well include the police and military too.

The results of such an enquiry might shock you. Well, maybe not, TiT, after all.

[geriatrickid]

Hmm, so does this mean that the students don't get their loan instalments, t the seniors don't receive their meagrely OAP, and the retired civil servants don't get their fat pensions?

Nice.

[bigbamboo]

Hmm, so does this mean that the students don't get their loan instalments, t the seniors don't receive their meagrely OAP, and the retired civil servants don't get their fat pensions?

Nice.

I believe the aim is to ensure there is still some money left in the bank to ensure they do.

[aussieinthailand]

Yu'p but hey your talking about Suthep and his mob, they aren't to clever so go ahead block all they like

[Thailand]

The GSB bank is one of the most corrupted bank, I have personally witnessed senior bank employee (Husband and wife both works at the main branch of the GSB Bank at Pahoyothin) and were usisng their own powers to get loans to buy more than 5 units at Lumpini Saphakwai. Normal depositors find it hard to get loans whereas many of the senior staff at the bank use their powers to finance the purchases of volumes of real estate for themselves. A check should be conducted on the bank employees and their families to see these things.

Bank staff corrupt? Surely not!

Certainly can't be Democrats as they are pure as the driven snow!

[celso]

They arrived at the bank at 11am, and by 1pm were all gone again.

[wirat69]

They arrived at the bank at 11am, and by 1pm were all gone again.

Only 2 hours to complete your business.... wow! That is one helluva lot better than at KasikornBank!!!!!

[SICHONSTEVE]

"The GSB is the piggy bank of children and the elderly so there is a need to protect the bank from the government, said the protest leader, adding that protesters will march to the banks head office on Paholyothin road today to shut it down."

I read this sentence once. I read it twice. Then I blacked out from trying to understand it.

Too much information for your brain cell then?

What happened did it short circuit and shut your body down temporarily until it recovered??

[SICHONSTEVE]

Stupid. The government already can't pay. This just gives the government an excuse as to why they can't.

Why Bother??

[speedtripler]

does he not know we all have atm cards ? lol

protesting outside the bank for 2 hrs is one of the most useless braindead ideas they have executed yet

and especially saying its to make sure there is enough money left in the bank for the young and the elderly

as if he was guarding the vault himself

[LarryBird]

The GSB bank is one of the most corrupted bank, I have personally witnessed senior bank employee (Husband and wife both works at the main branch of the GSB Bank at Pahoyothin) and were usisng their own powers to get loans to buy more than 5 units at Lumpini Saphakwai. Normal depositors find it hard to get loans whereas many of the senior staff at the bank use their powers to finance the purchases of volumes of real estate for themselves. A check should be conducted on the bank employees and their families to see these things.

Bank staff corrupt? Surely not!

Certainly can't be Democrats as they are pure as the driven snow!

Well played. I laughed.

[3NUMBAS]

monk Nengham has oodles of hot lolly from god knows where so can lend them the cash to pay the farmers .has anyone seen him lately ? he seems to have gone to ground .....

[noitom]

The headline is about "cripple southern provinces" but there is not a word about any southern provinces in Thailand.