Budget disbursement falls short of target

State investment budget disbursement fell short of the target by nearly 12 percentage points to 31.3% during the first half of this fiscal year, says a senior official at the Comptroller-General’s Department.

Some 180 billion baht worth of investment budget, excluding the supplementary budget, was taken out from October to March, representing 31.3% of the 577-billion-baht investment budget set for this fiscal year, said Yanee Sangsrichun, deputy director of the department.

The disbursed investment budget missed the target by 11.8 percentage points, lower than the 34.8% drawn down over the same period a year before, she said.

However, the rate would be 55.6% if signed contracts were taken into account, said Mrs Yanee.

Public investment has been a mainstay for economic growth in recent years amid tepid domestic consumption and private investment.

The government doled out an annual budget of 1.47 trillion baht, 1.59% lower than targeted, during the six months to March. The disbursed budget accounted for 50.7% of the 2.9-trillion annual budget expenditure.

However, its regular budget disbursement for the October-to-March period amounting to 1.29 trillion baht surpassed the target by 2.6%. The disbursed budget represented 57.6% of the 2.24 trillion baht set for the regular expenses of the 2018 fiscal year.

Mrs Yanee said state agencies managed to draw down 127 billion baht from the 323-billion carry-over budget during the six months to March.

The Comptroller-General’s Department will ramp up budget disbursement to come as close to the target as possible, she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak recently asked state agencies and enterprises to start accelerating their budget disbursement at the beginning of this year instead of in the final quarter.

In the meantime, Ekniti Nitithanprapas, director-general of the State Enterprise Policy Office (Sepo), said state enterprises contributed 68.1 billion baht in income to the government’s coffers during the October-to-January period, exceeding the target by 17.5%.

The top five income contributors were the Government Lottery Office at 19 billion baht, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand at 13.4 billion, Airports of Thailand at 8.6 billion, the Government Savings Bank at 6.52 billion and the Provincial Electricity Authority at 5.69 billion.

“In the 2018 fiscal year, Sepo has encouraged state enterprises to adopt IT and innovations to improve performance and be compliance with Thailand 4.0 policy. The adoption has allowed them to meet the income contribution target,” he said.