During the past five years, alleged loan sharks have filed complaints against debtors in court to evict them from land plots used as collateral to secure loans. If loan sharks refuse to negotiate with victims and offer fair interest rates, his agency will ask the Customs Department to tax them retroactively, he said. “The government can help farmers by transferring their debts from loan sharks to the Government Savings Bank or the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives instead,” he said. Office of the Prime Minister’s deputy secretary-general Sompas Nilapund said the government might consider allocating land for farmers who had lost their plots to loan sharks. “These land plots are for them to make a living only,” he said.

Source: The Nation Bangkok November 14, 2017 10:30 UTC