The Office of the Auditor General is examining the use of state funding by various government agencies for eradication of water hyacinth after receiving complaints about the increasing spread of the invasive plant in public waterways.
Auditor-general Pisit Leelavachiropas said people had asked how much money was allocated each year for government agencies, especially those responsible for the management of rivers, canals and drainage systems, to remove water hyacinth.
They also asked why the plants had continued to spread despite the money allocated to remove them.
Mr Pisit said he expected investigators to report this week how each agency had spent the money allocated for this purpose.
He cited a case involving the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
"The BMA's Drainage and Sewerage Department gets 5 billion baht per year to look after the drains. But, when the city was flooded the BMA said there were problems with the drainage systems and it would seek thousands of millions of baht extra to carry out another 21 projects.
"It could be thinking about 21 more projects overnight to turn a crisis into an opportunity, to increase its workload by 70% per year. I want to know what it had done with the 5 bilion baht provided annually for this purpose," said Mr Pisit.
Mr Pisit said it was good that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had raised the issue of water hyacinth. It served as a reminder for agencies in various areas to pay attention to small matters instead of leaving the problems to grow bigger and then ask for huge extra funding.
Preventive measures should be taken to cope with water hyacinth. The plants should be removed, not left untouched and allowed to spread, blocking waterways and causing water pollution.
Each government agency should have a plan to cope with problems, instead of spending most of the time going on study tours abroad, Mr Pisit said.