Parliament Committee Freezes 1 Billion Baht Farmer Relief Fund Over Accounting Issues

On July 14, 2025, a parliamentary budget committee held an extraordinary session to review the 2025 fiscal-year budget proposal, including the Farmer Rehabilitation and Development Fund's 1.08 billion baht allocation. Committee member Chaiyawat Sathavawichit, a former MP from the People's Party, raised serious concerns after reviewing the State Audit Office findings. The auditors could not verify 613 million baht in cash reserves because the fund's accounting records were improperly maintained across multiple bank accounts, with receipt and expense entries scattered across different registers. Additionally, of the 8.48 billion baht in farmer debts, auditors could only verify 708 million baht—the remaining 7.77 billion baht lacked any supporting evidence because the fund never prepared a closing balance sheet for inspection.

Chaiywat noted that the audit report revealed numerous other problems: outstanding debt reports contained errors unrelated to accounting entries, the fund had no standards for recording transactions, and some listed farmers were found to be non-existent. The report also documented 12 instances of retroactive accounting adjustments over ten years totaling 1.62 billion baht in unexplained transfers with no record of the source. "Money comes in from nowhere, money goes out to nobody, and some farmers don't exist at all," Chaiywat remarked, questioning whether the fund's management failures stemmed from negligence or something worse.

Chaiywat further criticized the fund's ineffectiveness, noting that since its establishment in 1999 it had spent 16,000 million baht with no reduction in farmer debt. The 2025 budget targets helping only 621 farmers at a cost of 288 million baht, raising questions about whether the fund should continue operating. The committee unanimously recommended suspending the fund's budget pending a full investigation and demanded accountability from those responsible.