Opposition Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat last week slammed the government for allocating 300 billion baht — the greatest single expense — of the 2023 budget bill to pension payments for retired civil servants. He said 40% of all state borrowing and taxes collected will be used to fund the ballooning pensions payouts rather than development schemes and labelled the bill for the forthcoming fiscal year the “ill elephant” budget.
Economically, Mr Pita’s opinion holds water in terms of the portion of the country’s budget that pensions payments constitute. But, morally, Mr Pita failed to acknowledge the fundamental principle underpinning the scale of the pension payments.
