The Finance Ministry has issued measures to expedite the disbursement of the fiscal 2024 budget, requiring the contract of new investment projects be signed by July, says Deputy Finance Minister Krisada Chinavicharana.
As chairman of the Budget Disbursement Acceleration Committee, Mr Krisada said the Comptroller General's Department (CGD), which controls disbursement of the state budget and government procurement, has issued guidelines to expedite the disbursement of the fiscal 2024 budget.
Once the fiscal 2024 budget is approved, the CGD will deliver the allocated budget to provincial finance offices nationwide within five days to fund their planned spending.
The contracts for planned investment projects must be signed by June while contracts for new investment projects must be signed by July.
He proposed the agency, which is the owner of the project, should have the discretion to follow up on the disbursement of the budget.
The state investment budget for fiscal 2024 is 200 billion baht, with a 95% disbursement target. In this case, contracts must be signed by March.
Furthermore, agencies with an investment budget should be prepared for investment, which include drafting the terms of reference (TOR) and extending invitations to entrepreneurs to bid on government projects.
This is to expedite the contract signing by the time the Expenditure Act comes into effect.
The cabinet has approved the Budget Bill for the 2024 fiscal year, which is now being forwarded to the House of Representatives. It is expected to take effect sometime in early May.
The spending budget would therefore have been delayed from the original Oct 1, 2023 start date by seven months.
Even though the 2024 Budget Expenditure Act cannot be issued in a timely manner for the new fiscal year, which starts on Oct 1, the budget for the previous fiscal year shall apply until a new one is approved, which includes fixed expenditure in the category of salaries and planned investment expenditure, excluding new investment projects.
As of Feb 9, 2024, a total of 1.32 trillion baht has been spent from the fiscal 2023 budget, with fixed expenditure and investment expenditure amounting to 1.1 trillion baht and 69.7 billion baht, respectively.
For fiscal 2024, the government set a target for state budget disbursement of 93% of the total budget, with 98% disbursement of the total fixed budget and 75% of the total investment budget.
In fiscal 2024, the government has set an expenditure budget of 3.48 trillion baht and revenue of 2.73 trillion baht, with a budget deficit of 693 billion baht.