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Published on September 20, 2007

Secretary-general Surin Jirawisit said the SSO had a growing problem of overpaying, which threatened the fund's future security. It was because 83 per cent of employers submitted notices of termination of workers one to three months late.

SSO compensation chief Boonrasri Burapathanin said officials were surveying employers and workplaces to see how many people received free child support for three months, which was Bt1,050 per case.

Legal action would be taken against those employers and workers identified as at fault because this was cheating the government, she said.

The employees who failed to report were mostly lazy and thought the matter was trivial, she said. The break was needed to sort the figures out and recheck workers' qualifications - an SSO member with one or two children aged one to six who had contributed for more than 12 months - to ensure they were entitled to child support.

Wilaiwan Saetia, president of the Thai Labour Reconciliation Committee, said the SSO administration was inefficient and caused the fund to be shaky. It should go after the employers, making them repay the money or face legal action.

The SSO wasted money on what was not its goals, such as spending Bt500 million to buy the Wattajak Building, Bt2.8 billion to upgrade computer systems, billions of baht on offshore investments and Bt30 million to finance overseas study for the SSO board, Wilaiwan added.

Narong Petchprasert, an economist at Chulalongkorn University, blamed the state agency's poor database management and weak reinforcement of regulations. Child support was actually a good policy because it would increase the working population when the country was clearly heading towards a greying society.

The Nation