Puea Thai criticizes Thai Unity, Strong Thailand project

BANGKOK, 6 December 2009 (NNT) – The Opposition Puea Thai Party has criticized the Thai Unity, Strong Thailand project of the government saying that it is not effective in tackling social divisions and uses too much budget.

Puea Thai Spokesperson, Prompong Nopparit, claimed that local government officials had to shoulder expenses in arranging 15 people from each village to attend the national anthem singing. Each province had to organize the singing event attended by about 10,000 to 20,000 people. In some provinces, there were more than 30,000 to 40,000 people taking part in the activity.

The spokesperson added that a large amount of secret budget had been used, saying that many millions of THB had been spent by local administrative organizations on the project. He said this finding was conducted by his party and contradicted the government’s claim that only 13 million THB had been used.

The project was initiated by the government with the objective to foster unity by encouraging the nation to sing the national anthem together everyday at 18.00 hrs. All 76 provinces across the country took turns arranging the live-broadcast singing according to the alphabetical order of their names. Bangkok was the last province in the project before the whole nation sang the anthem in unison on 5 December 2009.