The National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) has offered outdated reform recommendations after spending more than a billion baht on the task, says iLaw, a civil society group that monitors lawmaking and law enforcement.
ILaw has furnished a report on the work of the NRSA, which has concluded its work after almost two years. The assembly will be dissolved on Monday after it presents its reform summaries to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
ILaw representative Natchapakorn Nammuang said the group's report assesses the NRSA's performance based on its analysis of 190 reform-related summaries produced by the assembly. The group studied 131 of the summaries available for download on the NRSA website.
He said the NRSA came up with 1,342 recommendations on how to execute various areas of reforms up until July 7. But only 329 of the recommendations were substantial enough to be implemented and developed into action plans and legislation.
Details of some of the recommendations, he said, were inconclusive and lacking credible information from research to back them up. The research, if incorporated, would have helped determine if the recommendations could feasibly be put into practice and achieve the desired result. Examples include the proposal to overhaul the curriculum by adding the number of hours required for studying civic duties, religion and morality with the O-net standardisation test to be conducted on those subjects.
The overhaul was proposed on the assumption that making students study the subjects longer and having pupils sit the O-net on them would guarantee decent behaviour.
ILaw also said some reform recommendations appeared to have been derived from concepts borrowed from the now-disbanded National Reform Council (NRC). The proposals were merely the edited version of what had been initiated by the NRC, which was the NRSA's predecessor.
One example is the summary on the management of police manpower free of political interference, said Mr Natchapakorn. He said the NRSA compiled a proposal to introduce electronic monitoring devices for offenders, mirroring the law which the National Legislative Assembly had passed earlier.
The iLaw representative said the content in a number of the assembly's recommendations was antiquated, prompting opposition from professional groups.
One example was the NRSA-initiated bill aimed to set up a media professional council made up of several state officials, which critics feared could invite government interference in media affairs, as well as the proposed licensing of media practitioners.
During its time in office, the NRSA has spent 1.07 billion baht, including the salaries and allowances of its members.
Three-quarters of the 177-strong assembly were incumbent and former state officials, including military and police officers. The rest were businessmen, politicians and media professionals.
Mr Natchapakorn said the pubic should question whether the national reforms being pushed by the National Council for Peace and Order have succeeded.