Lawmaker Questions 996 Million Baht Training Budget at Interior Ministry

On September 9, 2025, the House of Representatives convened to debate the fiscal year 2570 budget bill worth 3.78 trillion baht in its second and third readings, following committee review. At 12:10 p.m., Nathwut Buaprathum, a People's Party list MP, scrutinized the Interior Ministry's 226,929 million baht allocation under Article 20. While the committee's 900 million baht cut fell within acceptable parameters, Nathwut flagged inconsistencies in how the cuts were applied, particularly regarding the Community Development Department.

Nathwut stressed that the Community Development Department, though important, required detailed cuts on programmes that fail to deliver real community benefit. He expressed puzzlement at how the department avoided cuts entirely while other ministries faced reductions, and questioned why the Community Development Department's 996 million baht training budget—representing 86 percent of the entire Interior Ministry's training and seminar expenditure—stood so disproportionately high.

Raising five specific concerns, Nathwut asked whether training and seminars functioned primarily as field deployment vehicles rather than genuine capacity building; who received payment from the lump-sum service contracts; whether the 520,472 training seats in a single year represented genuine community members or duplicates; whether some activities masqueraded as training while serving other purposes; and why the Community Development Department operated the ministry's largest training programmes.

"If the Community Development Department's work served grassroots people and rural communities like constituents in my province, I would not object," Nathwut said. "But these budget questions—who benefits?—trouble me deeply. Even if your cuts exceed my proposed percentage, why not reduce even one percent of what I flagged?"