Govt spokesperson insists flood victims not being ignored

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha attaches great importance to the operations designed to alleviate the grievances of flood victims and the government has procedures to compensate them, the government spokeswoman said on Monday.

Government spokeswoman Naruemol Pinyosinwat was apparently responding to growing criticism on the social networks that the Prayut government was ignoring the plight of flood victims in northeastern provinces.

The criticism came after Prayut visited Nakhon Si Thammarat and Surat Thani late last week instead of going to Ubon Ratchathani and other northeastern provinces hit by floods.

Naruemol said Prayut was giving priority to helping flood victims and had instructed government agencies concerned to provide assistance in accordance with established procedures, starting from emergency measures to evacuate flood victims from their homes to delivery of food and drinking water to flooded areas.

She said that once the water had receded, the government would speed up the surveys of affected areas to carry out rehabilitation work and also provide remedial measures to the victims.

These include paying compensation of Bt50,000 to the families of each victim killed by the floods and Bt200,000 for homes completely ruined by the water..Those with partially damaged houses will receive between Bt15,000 and Bt17,000 compensation, depending on the magnitude of damage, she added.

Moreover, other government agencies, especially the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, will provide help to those affected people.

“Flood victims can rest assured that the government will not abandon them,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the management of the donated items would be transparent, with a committee in each province charged with distributing donated funds and goods to the victims.

The Nation

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