A flap over leftover food in the parliamentary dining room has led to a pledge by Parliament president Wan Muhamad Noor Matha to look into the issue and discuss ways to make sure less food ends up going to waste.
The extent of free meals and drinks provided to members of parliament has drawn wide public attention in the wake of a social media food fight featuring Move Forward MP Sirilapas “Mew” Kongtrakarn.
An anonymous fellow MP spotted the former actress taking home some food from the canteen at the end of a long day in the House and posted a picture on Instagram, complete with critical commentary.
Ms Sirilapas reposted the picture on her personal X (Twitter) account and told her 20,000-plus followers that the food would have gone to waste had she not collected it.
That got more people asking questions about the government’s catering budget and led to calls for better management to reduce leftovers and save public money spent subsidising meals and drinks for lawmakers.
Mr Wan said he had held initial talks about the issue with his deputies, House secretary Pornpit Petcharoen and other officials. He said the goal should be to provide adequate services to MPs without spending too lavishly.
“I’ll get to this issue again in the middle of this month,” he said. “I’ll have to go over the budget to see if the catering budget should be cut. As an initial step, I’ve already asked them to address the problem.”
The House Secretariat is responsible for catering operations when there are parliament meetings. About 72 million baht was set aside for catering services in the 2023 fiscal year, which is about 1,000 baht per head per meeting day.
Basically two meals — lunch and dinner — and a morning break snack are provided on a parliamentary meeting day. If the meeting goes on until after 8pm, extra meals are also provided.
Another 34.8 million baht is budgeted for catering services for meetings of House committees, and 1.26 million baht for catering services for opposition whips.
The total budget for all catering operations for fiscal 2023 is just over 108 million baht.
Veteran politician Rangsima Rodrassamee called on the House committee on parliament affairs to revise the regulations governing the catering budget and for management to address any unnecessary spending.
She suggested that food allowances should be transferred to MPs’ ID cards for them to buy food in the parliament canteen, with any unspent money returned at the end of the day.
The Democrat MP for Samut Songkhram complained last year about fellow lawmakers hoarding food and called for strict rules prohibiting MPs from taking away free meal boxes offered to them during parliamentary meetings.
“The country loses a lot of money because there is a lot of free food available,” she said. “When I asked why they had a lot of food bags, they said they got them from committee meetings and they went for more [at the canteen].
“This is a waste, isn’t it? Parliament must find a way to address this.”