Senate to vet budget bill in parallel with House panel
The Senate will set up a special committee to vet the budget bill in parallel with the House budget panel instead of waiting for the House to pass the bill to the upper chamber.
Senator Lertrat Ratanawanit said the Senate will set up a 46-member budget panel, which will start meeting on January 15 and work in parallel with the House panel.
The fiscal 2024 budget bill was passed in the first reading by the House last week and a special House panel was set up to vet it.
Lertrat said the bill is scheduled to be approved in final readings by the House in early April and the Senate is scheduled to finish its deliberations by April 10 before the bill is sent for royal endorsement on April 17.
He said that because this timetable would give the Senate only six or seven days to study the bill, it would work in parallel with the Houe to study the bill in advance.
Lertrat said the special Senate budget panel will have both senators and specialist outsiders as members.
Lertrat noted that the bill would seek investment allocations for just 20% of the overall budget, which he said would not be sufficient to tackle the economic crisis.
Senator Sathit Limpongphan said the Pheu Thai-led government did not include key policies in projects to be financed by allocations of the fiscal 2024 budget bill.
Sathit said he estimated that the allocations sought would not boost the country’s GDP to grow by at least 5%, a minimum requirement for Thailand to reach the status of a developed nation by 2037.
“The budget bill doesn’t show any potential for the requested budget to contribute to economic recovery and growth,” Sathit added.
