Draft completed! The first law to control ‘oil prices’

Bangkok, "Pirapan" revealed the first law to control "oil prices" to prevent traders from adjusting prices up or down arbitrarily. The draft is now complete, waiting for the legal department and the Council of State to review it before it is announced. Mr. Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy, said about the management of diesel prices at this time that all elements are in accordance with the current law. However, it must be admitted that oil prices rise and fall arbitrarily. Nowadays, no one can control them. Traders can increase or decrease if they want. The way to solve this problem is to amend the law because in the past, government agencies did not have the authority to do so and could only ask for cooperation. This law will be the first law related to the fuel management system. The draft is now complete and the public can inspect it. After this, it will be sent to the legal department for inspection and then to the Office of the Council of State for inspection again before being announced. It is not yet known whether it will be in time for the new year, but we will try to do it as soon as possible. Originally, to manage oil prices since 1973, we established the Oil Fund, but there was no supporting law. Therefore, we used Prime Ministerial Order 42/2547, which gave the fund the authority to fix the price or maintain the oil level in 2 ways: one way is to use the fund's money, and the other way is to set the tax ceiling. The Oil Fund does not have the authority to collect taxes, but it does have the authority to set the tax ceiling. Therefore, we use this to fix the price to help take care of the people. In addition to using money, we can also use the tax ceiling as a control. We are the ones who set the tax ceiling, but the one who collects is the Ministry of Finance. But later in 2019, there was a law to support the status of the Oil Fund, but it cut the fund's authority to set the tax ceiling, leaving only money. Therefore, since 2019, the fund's figures have been in debt and have been in the red since then because the fund's authority to set the tax ceiling is gone. I have tried to ask the Ministry of Finance to consider reducing the excise tax ceiling, but they disagreed, even though it was originally the fund's authority to not collect more than this amount. Therefore, this is something that needs to be fixed. In the past, there were only 3 countries. The excise tax on oil is collected by Thailand at 5.99 baht per liter, plus a local tax of 0.51 baht, for a total of 6.50 baht per liter. Vietnam collects an excise tax of 1.70 baht per liter. Singapore collects an excise tax of 5.54 baht per liter. However, Singapore's per capita income is about 10 times higher than Thailand's. Another frequently asked question is why is the price of oil in Malaysia so cheap at only 10 baht per liter? Mr. Phiraphan said that in the past, the price of oil in Malaysia was cheap because the Malaysian government had income from petroleum, so it used this income to subsidize and compensate f or 300-400 billion baht per year, making the price of oil in Malaysia cheap. However, after this subsidy will start to decrease, which will cause the price of oil in Malaysia to start to increase. In Thailand, the actual cost of oil is around 21 baht, but we actually have to pay 30-40 baht because there is also the oil tax involved. Mr. Phiraphan also emphasized that helping the people means taking the people's problems and making them our problems instead, in order to help the people not to suffer. As for the debt repayment with EGAT, if there are problems in the future, the government must step in to help and take care of them. Source: Thai News Agency