Lawmaker Demands Answers on 31% Missing Personnel Budget
A Thai lawmaker questioned a 31% cut in personnel spending for southern border security operations, citing concerns about phantom troops and duplicate compensation payments across multiple agencies that may incentivize keeping regional prob
On September 7, 2569, parliament debated the 3.78 trillion baht fiscal budget for 2570. At 15:09, Romdaun Panjor, a Palang Pracharath list MP, addressed the budget for the Prime Minister's Office and affiliated agencies, specifically the Internal Security Operations Command. He cited a Nida Poll survey of three southern border provinces showing that 35.7 percent of residents linked recent unrest to budget issues in their areas.
Romdaun noted that the Internal Security Operations Command controls 5,041 million baht—88 percent of all government spending in the three southern border provinces, with over 2,300 million allocated to personnel and operations. He highlighted that violence incidents in 2568 numbered 168, higher than 2560 when the 20-year national strategy began, yet were supposed to reach zero by 2570.
He questioned whether the 31 percent budget reduction—from 3,393 million baht to 2,341 million—resulted from discovery of phantom troops, and whether past cases would face scrutiny or be overlooked. He also flagged potential duplicate compensation: special allowances for border-region personnel scattered across 46 agencies totaling over 2,000 million baht, creating a risk that individual officers receive payments from multiple sources while serving the same area.
Romdaun warned that the current system incentivizes agencies to keep border problems unresolved to preserve their budgets and authority, rather than solving them.
