Published on June 24, 2005

Orders agencies to spend remaining Bt100 billion

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will convene a special Cabinet meeting on Sunday in a bid to ensure the remaining Bt100 billion in the budget for the current 2004-2005 fiscal year is spent.

Thaksin yesterday said he would ask government agencies to expedite their spending plans.

He said government agencies’ books had now been linked to the government’s central database, so he could see which agencies still had some of their budgets left.

Economic observers view Sunday’s meeting as Thaksin’s last-ditch attempt to stimulate the economy to reach 5 per cent growth. The country’s economy is slowing down, and few believe the target of 5 per cent growth is achievable.

The current fiscal year ends in three months, but Bt100 billion of the budget has not yet been spent.

“This could equate to missed chances, because we set aside Bt300 billion as an investment budget, but only Bt200 billion has been spent so far,” said Thaksin.

The prime minister said he had done his homework and found that, during the past few fiscal years, as much as Bt500 million to Bt600 million had been left unspent.

“During the June 26 Cabinet meeting, I will try to flush and clean the pipelines, to make sure the money is spent,” he said.

Thaksin said bureaucratic red tape had stopped government agencies spending their allotted budgets in a timely manner.

“Some agencies simply try to block other agencies from getting access to funds by seeking big budgets but not spending the money,” the prime minister said.

He said accelerating spending would benefit the country’s development.

“We have the money for the country’s development, but the money has been reserved in the wrong places, so we need to speed up development. After the money is spent on development projects, the economy will benefit,” said Thaksin.

He said the Transport Ministry had the most money left over, but most of the central fund was gone.

Thaksin said that from now on he would routinely check the online system to see which agencies had part of their budgets left and re-route the funds to try to tackle poverty.

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