The Comptroller-General's Department is preparing to review the median price for state construction projects in response to a request from four local contractor groups, says director-general Manas Jamveha.
The median price for project bidding set by procurement officials is seen as a root cause of inefficiency in the government's earlier stimulus scheme, which was plagued by auction delays and slow budget disbursement.
According to the contractors, the current median price does not reflect actual costs, which are rising because of higher prices for building materials and the imposition of the 300-baht daily minimum wage.
The government raised the median price by 2%, as opposed to the 5-10% requested by the contractors.
Lower oil prices have eased costs only slightly because oil is not a major input in construction.
The four groups that jointly submitted the request were the Association of Siamese Architects, the Engineering Institute of Thailand, the Thai Contractors Association and the Consulting Engineers Association of Thailand.
"They have asked for a review [of the median price] to reflect current costs and to be fair to them," Mr Manas said.
The wage issue in particular has worsened the labour shortage, as the labour-intensive construction sector must offer higher pay to keep workers from seeking less-strenuous jobs.
At the end of January, 970 billion baht of the fiscal 2015 budget had been disbursed, constituting 37.6% of the total budget of 2.575 trillion baht.
Certain items have made progress, such as 96% disbursement of the 40-billion-baht budget for aiding rice farmers, 89.4% of the 7.3-billion-baht budget for rubber planters and a 96-billion-baht disbursement from the provisional budget for overlapping fiscal years.
The Comptroller-General's Department has spoken to 41 state agencies that have been slow to disburse funds.
The combined fiscal 2015 budget of the 41 agencies is more than 330 billion baht. Mr Manas expects improvement in disbursement speed in the second quarter, with more than 90% of projects scheduled to resolve their procurement contracts.
"If disbursement progresses as planned, by the third and fourth quarter 96% of total budget expenditure for fiscal 2015 should be out and the investment budget should be disbursed by as much as 87%," Mr Manas said.