Academics call for an end to shady deals

THE GENERAL public should have a direct role in state budget management to prevent murky spending programmes such as the recent multi-billion-baht deal to buy Chinese-made submarines, a group of academics said yesterday.
“Thailand should adopt a more participatory government model similar to South Korea to increase efficiency of public spending,” Sasatra Sudsawasd, associate professor in economics at National Institute of Development Administration, said.
Sasatra is part of a group of researchers who conducted a study on how to improve management of the government’s budget, which has often been the source of widespread corruption and wasteful spending of public money. 
“One of the foremost solutions is to give the public a role in formulating the annual budget and auditing it too,” said Sasatra. 
He said South Korea has set a new benchmark for best budget management practices in recent years.
It began when former president Moo-hyun Roh set up a “Participatory Government” as the national agenda when he took office in 2003. 
He introduced the National Fiscal Act that allowed public participation in the beginning, implementing and auditing stages of the budget procedure that resulted in close to Bt100-billion savings in annual government spending.
Korean fiscal management is a top-down budgeting and performance-based process, which is similar to Thailand’s approach.
South Korea, however, does better by allowing public hearings on mid-term where state officials gather public opinions and suggestions during budget preparation. 
When the government drafts its annual budget bill, representatives from the general public can have their say to determine priority projects or what projects are not viable. State officials also meet with local governments to discuss their needs and resources.
When the government presents the budget bill to the parliament, outside experts are invited to give opinions and recommendations. During budget implementation, the public can monitor project implementation via a budget waste report centre, which can influence project implementation. 
As well, the public can also participate in auditing the budget implementation to see whether it delivers desired results. Since the implementation of participatory government in 2004, the South Korean government has saved about Bt80 billion annually, said Sasatra.

Greater use of IT
The South Korea government also uses information technology to give access to every project in the country, so the budgeting is very transparent compared with Thailand’s obscure practice.
“In South Korea, there is no quiet discussion among Cabinet members when the government has to purchase a large item, as the Thai government did when it decided to purchase a submarine from China,” he added.
Meanwhile, Athiphat Muthita-charoen, economics lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, also raised concerns about Thai government directing state-owned banks to boost the economy by giving soft loans. 
He said the practice could hurt banks and the burden would be placed on taxpayers later.