Opposition demands details of spending

The Democrats said knowing how the PM’s Office had spent the money in the past year was an important factor in considering next year’s budget. At 5pm, Opposition chief whip Jurin Laksanawisit gave the government an ultimatum: hand over the documents by 7pm or the meeting must take a break.
“You said 113 projects required an amount of Bt118 billion to be withdrawn. But can you show us where the projects, worth about Bt1 billion each, took place? Were they canal or swamp dredging? Were they dug deep enough? Were [the projects] concentrated in the same areas? We and the people don’t have any way of knowing,” MP Chuti Krairiksh said while complaining that he had not received the documents he had requested on Wednesday night.

Chuti said it was sheer luck that the committee scrutinising the budget bill had discovered duplicated construction-project proposals from the Transport Ministry on 80 routes. The committee notified the Budget Bureau, under the PM’s Office, which cut Bt5 billion from the budget for the duplicated routes.

The MPs also attacked Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong, the chairman of the ad hoc committee considering the 2013 budget, for his absence from the chamber at the time of the debate. 

At 4pm, Kittiratt clarified to the meeting that he had closely followed the debate, although he had work to do elsewhere. The Opposition could ask other committee members if they had any queries, he said.

Kittiratt told the Opposition not to worry about the reports on the spending of the 2012 budget, as the ministers would provide them later. Rather, they should focus on the 2013 budget for now and use the information on the 2012 budget in the censure debate, if that is what they want.

Yesterday was the second day of the second reading of the 2013 Budget Bill. The MPs considered the budget for the PM’s Office set at Bt25 billion. 

MP Boonyod Sooktinthai proposed that the PM’s Office budget be cut, saying the spending was ineffective. 

Boonyod compared the travel costs racked up by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra when attending World Economic Forum in Davos to her predecessor Abhisit Vejjajiva. Yingluck spent Bt13 million on chartered flights while travelling to Switzerland and then to New Delhi in January. Meanwhile, Abhisit spent Bt4 million travelling on commercial flights to Switzerland, and it would have cost only about Bt5 million if his group had continued to India, the MP said.

Reacting to the criticism of Yingluck by the Democrats, Kittiratt said Yingluck was doing a good job in promoting the country, including when she shopped during trips abroad as it created a good impression on foreigners. MP Pichet Panvichartkul at first refused to start debating yesterday morning unless he received the requested spending report. He attacked the credibility of PM’s Office Minister Woravat Auapinyakul, saying Bt1.3 billion out of the Central Budget was allocated to Phrae, Woravat’s home province, alone.

Woravat said his province is located on the upstream section of the Yom River. Therefore, to properly deal with and prevent flood problems, his province needed such a budget. He said other flood-affected provinces including Lop Buri had also received billions of baht for the same cause.

While Pichet said Phrae received Bt1.3 billion for flood-related projects, Worawat said Lop Buri received over Bt3 billion.

On Wednesday, the House passed only the overall amount of next year’s budget of Bt2.4 trillion, and the Bt318 billion amount for the Central Budget. The funds were not allocated to specific agencies.

A committee member from the Democrat Party, Pongsri Tarapoom, yesterday said there were many proposed projects that were expensive but lacked details. She called them “one-line projects”.

“The Bt500-million budget for promotion of Thailand’s image was first proposed without any details. The committee [on budget consideration] then suspended the approval asking the agency [the Office of the Permanent Secretary of the PM’s Office] to supply details. They came back with two pages of documents and some supporting documents that gave little detail,” she said by way of an example. “