The Election Commission (EC) has rejected the government’s proposal to use about 11 billion baht of a special budget to ease household electricity charges, on the grounds that the proposal was not approved by the cabinet.

The proposal was submitted to the EC on Tuesday by the Office of the Secretary-General of the cabinet, on behalf of the Ministry of Energy. The EC discovered, however, that the Office of the Secretary-General had failed to mention the cabinet’s approval for the use of the special budget.

The EC has not yet received a new letter from the Secretary-General.

The budget, to be drawn from the Central Fund, would be used to subsidise household electricity charges, for those who use up to 300 units of electricity per month, from May to August.

Households which use up to 150 units per month would be given a discount of 92.04 satang for every unit of electricity consumed, while those who consume 151-300 units would be given a discount of 67.04 satang per unit.

There are 18.36 million households which use fewer than 300 units/month.