Auditor-general to push for more stringent guidelines on overseas trips by lawmakers

The Office of the Auditor-General is to submit a report on the expenditure on foreign trips by members of the previous parliaments to lawmakers and the reform assembly.

Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas says his agency proposes enactment of a legal framework to limit “unproductive” expenses in the coming Senate and the House of Representatives.

The move is in response to rumours that members of Parliament under the administrations led by civilian prime ministers – Abhisit Vejjajiva between 2008 and 2011 and Yingluck Shinawatra from 2011 to 2014 – spent large budget sums on “nonsense” matters, including overseas inspection tours.

The most high-profile controversy in 2012 was a Bt7-million jaunt to Europe undertaken by then House speaker Somsak Kiatsura-nont with 37 others, including journalists and his daughter. 

The case prompted the House panel on parliamentary affairs to investigate the matter. However, the panel said the trip spending was in line with the House’s budget. In that year, the media also described the House of Representatives under Yingluck’s rule as “getting ready to ruin and waste the budget”.

Pisit, who has served as auditor-general since August 2014 – a few months after the coup – is determined to clear up the parliamentary mess caused by politicians’ exploitation of taxpayers’ money.

The Office, under his leadership, has worked on gathering information and records on parliamentary overseas itineraries between 2011 and 2015. It will forward the findings to the National Legislative Assembly, the National Reform Steering Assembly and the ruling National Council for Peace and Order.

Pisit said he hoped the report would be primarily used to outline the legal framework to reform and regulate spending by the next Parliament. Previously the Parlia-ment did not limit the number of foreign trips in each fiscal year.

The auditor-general’s report found that over the last five years, almost Bt1 billion in total had been reimbursed from the two Houses to cover the parliamentary committees’ spending on overseas trips.

“This amount could be spent on the country’s development projects that are more productive and necessary for our country than wasted on those committees to go and chill out abroad,” Pisit remarked in an exclusive interview with The Nation.

According to the report, from 2011 to 2015 parliamentary committees comprising representatives from both Houses had reimbursed overseas trip expenses from the Lower House and the Upper House – for Bt613 million and Bt304 million respectively.

There is speculation the spending was dramatically high before the May 2014 coup, according to Pisit.

From 2011-13, the Lower House’s spending on overseas trips accounted for over Bt140 million per year, with almost Bt200 million in 2013. The Senate spent more than Bt78 million annually on such trips and saw the highest spending, Bt106 million, in 2013 as well.

However, in 2015, a year following the coup, spending on trips substantially decreased to Bt18 million for the Lower House and less than Bt1 million for the Senate.

“[This was] because after the coup, both Houses were dissolved and the spending was just backpay,” according to a source.

The record also pointed out that all 35 parliamentary committees in each fiscal year on average took two overseas trips a year. The most popular destination was the United States, followed by countries in Europe and Asia.

“Visiting the US costs a large sum of money with regards to flight tickets, hotels and allowances,” said Pisit.

He also claimed the trips were somewhat “useless” because the committees enjoyed sightseeing and shopping rather than engaging in work. He added that the committees never evaluated the effectiveness of each of the trips.

“No concrete result was available after the foreign trips,” Pisit stressed.

The frequent foreign trips also left a question mark over whether or not tour companies that serviced the committees were allies of the politicians who shared business interests with the politicians involved.

The auditor-general also questioned the need to travel abroad, saying that MPs and senators sitting in the committees were experts who already specialised in certain areas. “So why did they need to exploit the taxpayer’s money to study other countries’ work again?” he asked.

He said his team would do its best to push for parliamentary spending reform to ensure that the incoming Houses spend the public’s money effectively.