Almost half of this fiscal year’s state investment budget was taken out during the October-to-January period.
State agencies doled out 46.7% of the fiscal 2019 investment budget during the four months to January, compared with 17% during the same period a year earlier and 16% during the period in fiscal 2017, said Yanee Sangsrichun, an adviser on fiscal and financial systems development at the Comptroller-General’s Department.
The higher disbursement figure could be due to a change in the calculation methodology that takes into account the value of signed contracts, Mrs Yanee said.
Between October 2018 and January 2019, 1.36 trillion baht worth of annual budget expenditure was drawn down, representing 45.2% of this fiscal year’s total budget.
The cabinet earlier approved a fiscal 2019 budget expenditure of 3 trillion baht, of which 2.2 trillion or 72.2% is regular budget, 666 billion is investment budget, and the rest is for debt repayment.
Of the total disbursed budget, 1.01 trillion baht was regular budget and 260 billion was investment budget.
Mrs Yanee said the Comptroller-General’s Department is monitoring state agencies’ budget disbursement to comply with the government’s policy to improve efficiency in public spending.
Amid external headwinds, domestic demand (which includes public investment and spending) is the main buffer for the economy.
The budget disbursement rate for fiscal 2018 was 92%, worth 2.67 trillion baht, lower than in fiscal 2017, when the rate was 94.6%.
The total value of the fiscal 2018 budget was 2.9 trillion baht, while budget disbursement for public investment was 373 billion, or 56.5% of the total investment disbursement sum of 659.8 billion.
