A draft bill establishing a national holding firm to oversee 12 corporatised state enterprises is set to go before the cabinet next week before the National Legislative Assembly takes it up later this year.
Ekniti Nitithanprapas, director-general of the State Enterprise Policy Office (Sepo), said the bill aims to prevent politicians from exploiting state enterprises for pork-barrel projects as in the past, while raising efficiency to boost revenue and scale down burdensome budgets.
The draft bill is in line with the government's plan to overhaul state enterprises, most of which have long been influenced by politicians who have appointed aides and other proxies to boards or top executive positions to fulfil populist campaign pledges.
The State Enterprises Policy Commission (superboard), chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, approved the draft bill last month.
Mr Ekniti said Sepo has set aside 1 billion baht for management costs in the national holding firm's first year of operations.
Among the 12 corporatised state enterprises, wholly owned by the Finance Ministry, to be transferred to the holding company are PTT, Krungthai Bank, TOT, CAT Telecom, MCOT, Thai Airways International, Airports of Thailand and the State Railway of Thailand (SRT).
The remaining 44 state enterprises will be supervised by Sepo.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak yesterday urged state enterprises to speed up their budget disbursement, particularly during the third quarter of the year -- the final three months (July-September) of Thailand's fiscal 2016 -- to help investment and economic sentiment in the third and fourth quarters.
He met yesterday with top executives from 17 large-scale state-owned enterprises with a combined investment budget of 289.63 billion baht, representing 96% of the total investment budget of all state enterprises.
As of July, the 17 state enterprises have disbursed 131 billion baht out of the 160 billion baht target.
Mr Somkid also required state enterprises to prepare in advance their investment budgets for fiscal 2017 so that the disbursement could be made immediately in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 in a bid to drive investment next year.
Mr Ekniti said seven state enterprises could achieve budget disbursement surpassing the 95% target, including the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand and three corporatised organisations handling electricity: the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, the Metropolitan Electricity Authority and the Provincial Electricity Authority.
SRT has reported a disbursement of 60% of its budget in the current fiscal year, while AoT disbursed 53% of its budget.
In a move to step up disbursement, Sepo recently established account officers to monitor the disbursement of each state enterprise, while Mr Somkid and Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong have agreed to visit each state enterprise every month.
Mr Ekniti said that while private investment remains bearish, the investment by state enterprises will play an important role to boost the economy this year and next.
Sepo will also team up with the National Economic and Social Development Board to work closely with each state enterprise to help design their investment plans and priority projects that need to be expedited in fiscal 2017.