ThaiHealth may face tighter curbs on spending

THREE sections of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) Act, including the definition of health promotion and budget usage regulations, have been designated for amendment to resolve the management problems within the foundation.

Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn will hold a meeting on the problems today.

Justice Minister General Paiboon Koomchaya, chairman of the Centre for National Anti-Corruption, said after meeting with ThaiHealth at Government House that the two sides agreed on the need to amend the three sections. They are Section 3, which defines “health promotion”; Section 10, governing usage of the foundation’s annual budget; and Section 18, on the qualifications of the members of the ThaiHealth board.

Dr Supreda Adulyanon, ThaiHealth acting manager, was summoned to testify on the allegations of conflict of interest in the organisation and budget misuse, accusations raised earlier by the Office of the Auditor-General.

Paiboon said the first problematic section was No 3, which uses very broad terms to define “health promotion”, which led to the misunderstanding that ThaiHealth was responsible for a very large range of projects. 

This meant its budget was used for projects irrelevant to its core objectives.

“Section 10 is another unclear law that needs to be revised because it misleads people to think that ThaiHealth is independent from the government in how it spends its funds, so it can do anything it wants with the money,” he said. 

“This led to inefficient use of the country’s money.”

He said he hoped to see ThaiHealth reform its funding procedures and join the regular government-budget allocation system.

Section 18 is also problematic because it opens the door for conflicts of interest, he said.

“The public health minister will take on the next process and will set up a meeting [today] to address the problems concerning the three sections,” Paiboon said.

Supreda said his organisation would hold talks with Piyasakol in order to solve the problems with the ThaiHealth Act.

“We have already explained and provided full evidence to defend ourselves against all allegations made about us and we will further clarify our [position] with the Public Health Ministry and other agencies,” he said.