THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Guidelines needed for foreign trips: Ex-MPs

Guidelines needed for foreign trips: Ex-MPs

FORMER members of parliament have said parliamentary budgets for foreign trips are still required but there should be clear guidelines to ensure the trips are productive and contribute to public interest.

Their remarks came after a move by the Office of the Auditor-General to push for reform of parliamentary expenditure on foreign trips considered “extravagant”.
Former Democrat Party MP Vilas Chanpitaksa said the budgets should be in place as foreign trips were necessary, especially for parliamentary committees on anti-corruption, budget scrutiny, and price guarantees.
He added, however, that overseas trips are not necessary for security and border affairs committees.
Vilas, the former head of the House of Representatives’ committee on anti-corruption, revealed that each parliamentary committee had a Bt5-million budget for overseas trips annually. 
He said the money could neither be allocated to other categories of expenses nor kept, if it were not spent. All committees, therefore, arranged trips so that all the budget was spent, he added.
He said terms and conditions should also be set to regulate expenditure and to control “unproductive” expenses.
Vilas proposed that parliamentary committees that aimed to engage in inspection trips abroad should provide “clear objectives” and detailed programmes.
“They [outgoing committees] should clarify the programmes – what they do during the trips,” he said.
He suggested that Parliament could set up a committee to examine and approve such programmes to ensure they were useful and the expenses reasonable.
He told The Nation that to be fair, the examining committee should comprise representatives from different political parties to prevent problems of the past from reoccurring – MPs approving all programmes and not considering whether the cost was reasonable.
The Democrat believed that less than half the 35 parliamentary committees submitted reports on their trips, adding that Parliament previously did not follow up on the reports. 
He referred to Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas’s comment that parliamentary committees rarely evaluated the effectiveness of the trips.
Former Pheu Thai MP Samart Kaewmeechai highlighted the importance of the foreign trip budget, saying that the people’s representatives should have the opportunity to study foreign works, which in turn could develop their potential.
Samart, a former deputy president of the House, defended the effectiveness of the foreign trips between 2011-14. He said then president of Parliament, Chai Chidchob, placed importance on guidelines for parliamentary overseas tours.
According to the guidelines, he said the programmes should be in line with the job description of committees while the visited countries must invite them for specific events. 
He said the number of trip participants and the cost should be reasonable. The committees must also submit a trip report.
He said besides Parliament, other public organisations also had foreign trip budgets as part of human resource development, which could contribute to the country’s development.
“The development of individuals’ potential cannot be estimated by the budget amount,” he said in response to the auditor-general’s report that cited lavish spending of Bt1 billion by lawmakers over the last five years on overseas tours.
He said measures determining a trip’s success should also be used, including better relationships with visited countries and knowledge gained from trips. 
 
RELATED
nationthailand