Parliament Committee Finds Excessive Spending Across Multiple Agencies

On July 24, 2025, at Parliament, Sirikanya Tansakul, a Pheu Thai list MP and deputy party leader, discussed the overall budget bill review for fiscal year 2570 in the special budget committee. Over the past three weeks, numerous agencies have had their budgets cut significantly. However, during the first week of subcommittee deliberation, Sirikanya noted that despite major cuts, abnormally high budget items and redundancies persist. The Digital Economy Ministry received a 30% budget increase, mostly for central government cloud infrastructure, adding 5 billion baht to this year's budget. She explained that when examining individual agencies, separate cloud system purchases and leases were discovered, creating duplication. The subcommittee reviewing digital government integration plans suspended agencies seeking additional cloud purchases, requiring certification from the Digital Economy Ministry that there is no redundancy before approval. Sirikanya also flagged the Social Development Ministry's cuts to disability benefits while allocating funds for internal Data Center projects with excessive costs: a 200,000-baht fire exit door, an 800,000-baht backup power supply, and 15,000-baht office chairs per unit. The subcommittee, which began work only this week, has already identified numerous irregularities and excessively inflated line items requiring adjustment. She concluded that despite government claims of significant self-imposed cuts to cover pensions and healthcare costs, examination of individual projects continues to reveal overpriced items.