The cabinet meeting on Monday 24, January 2011 has come to the following decision:
The Cabinet acknowledged and approved as proposed by the Ministry of Finance as follows :
1. Acknowledged the implementation's result according to the Cabinet’s resolution on 12 October 2010.
2. Approved the appointment of committee regulating principles and inspecting middle price of the construction. The committee is to replace the subcommittee regulating construction's middle price calculation and the subcommittee regulating middle price inspection policy of the construction. It consists of deputy Finance Minister as chairman and director of the Thai Government Procurement, the Comptroller General's Department, as committee and secretary.
The Cabinet approved further support from the middle budget in order to assist flood-affected agriculturalists in 2010 with the amount of 5,429.82 million baht as proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and allowed the time extension to cover the issue until February 2011 as follows :
1. In accordance with the Cabinet’s resolution of 2 November 2010 on additional allocation amounting to 1,812.77 million baht, agriculturalists in the fields of vegetation and fishery will be given 1,577.35 million baht and 235.42 million baht respectively. Moreover, because the Cabinet had a resolution on 30 November 2010 to give assistance to unregistered farmers, the estimated allowance limit of 14,883.41 million baht proved to be inadequate.
2. To assist agriculturalists in the south with the amount of 3,403.49 million baht. Certain parts of the area has been inspected for damage and approved by the committee assisting the victims, with the exception in areas where the flood situation is still present. Nevertheless, there has already been damage estimation to cover the areas, which is divided into vegetation, fishery, and cattle fields with the amount of 5,573.59 million baht, 562.92 million baht, and 266.98 million baht respectively.
3. To provide assistance to rubber planters in the case where the field is not damaged with the amount of 136.86 million baht. This is an assistance to individual farmers, which is not included in the assistance principles according to the Cabinet’s resolution on 16 November 2010. The farmers will receive 90 baht of compensation per tree which totals 1,520,583 tons.
4. To provide assistance to fishery boats and equipments with the amount of 76.70 million baht. This includes 977 affected fishery boats and 186,233 fishery equipments which worth 34.78 million baht and 41.29 million baht respectively.
The Cabinet acknowledged the progress of welfare for the disabled project as proposed by the Ministry of Interior as follows :
The Ministry of Interior reported that the Department of Local Administration has reimbursed the amount of 166,301,500 baht from the fund to support social welfare for the disabled for the 2010 fiscal budget, and the amount of 74,752,500 baht from the 2009 discrepancy allowance fiscal budget to be used as subsidy for the benefits of officials and transferred employees (according to the Cabinet’s resolution on 24 August 2010). The subsidy is to support social welfare for the disabled in the 2nd installment (the last one) for 1 month (September 2010) for 482,108 people with the total amount of 241,054,000 baht.
The Cabinet acknowledged the 1st Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation between Thailand and Uzbekistan as proposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and assigned related public agencies (the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Tourism & Sports, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Health, and the Ministry of Industry) to proceed with the meeting's result in order to create concrete outcome. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will track the progress to see that the implementation is in accordance with the meeting's result.
The Cabinet had a consideration about the return of teachers' ratio based on the retirement findings as proposed by the Ministry of Education as follows :
1. Assigned the MOE to implement the issue to be in accordance with the Cabinet’s resolution on 19 August 2008 (the finding of the lack of teachers and education personnel and the proposed solutions). The Ministry of Education is to conduct details to increase the ratio to the State Resources and Policy Specification Committee for consideration according to necessity. The Ministry of Education is to also consider the opinions of the Office of the Public sector Development Commission Thailand, the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board, and the State Resources and Policy Specification Committee.
2. The State Resources and Policy Specification Committee is to accelerate the allocation of teachers' and education personnel's ratio after the finding of retirement at the end of 2010 fiscal budget and complete the issue within February 2011.
3. Assigned the Ministry of Education to coordinate with the State Resources and Policy Specification Committee to conduct plans to adjust teachers' and education personnel's ratio based on the retirement finding in the years of 2011-2013 in order to balance human resources and basic missions of education and to manage education resources efficiently.
--Cabinet Meeting (Abhisit Vejjajiva) January 24, 2011--