Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I consider it a great honor and privilege for me to be invited to this beautiful city of Kualalumpur to participate in this seminar and to present my paper on the country review to this distinguished audience and to help clarify various points contained in my paper.
As suggested by ACDA, my talk will deal with the prevailing situation and conditions regarding the current budgeting system and practices in Thailand. Some particular problems will be discussed at the end of my talk.
First of all, I should like to make brief observations on the current budgeting system. Generally speaking, this system is still largely traditional which means that its structure is conceptually based on line -item budgeting system. Combining some modern concepts of programme budgeting system with those of the line -item, the form of the Thai national budget is original.
Such originality is reflected in the manner in which the budget is presented, that is, the budget submitted to the parliament contains expenditure
classification by objects as well as the classification by programmes and sub – programmes. In other words, the Appropriation Bill contains only expenditures classified by organizations and by objects, while other budget documents show programmes and sub – programmes for which funds will be appropriated. By the presenting expenditure classification based on programmes and sub – programmes, the form of the Thai national budget
look’s like that of a programme budget adopted by certain developed countries. However in Thailand, the budget execution does not necessarily follows programmes and sub – programmes presented in the budget documents since these programmes are not enacted by parliament. In this respect, the Thai national budgeting system cannot be assimilated with such programmes budgeting. Nevertheless, the presentation of the programmes classification is helpful to Budget Bureau’sstaff for it provides the framework for budget review. Moreover, it supplies additional information to the parliament and general public concerning what the government is expected
to accomplish during the coring fiscal year.