Police force cuts 10% of budget to aid virus relief

By THE NATION

 

 

The Royal Thai Police (RTP) has slashed its fiscal 2020 budget by Bt657 million to help the government fight Covid-19, Pol Lt Gen Piya Uthayo, deputy national police chief, said on Friday (April 24).

 

“The cut is in compliance with Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha’s order for all ministries reduce their budget by 10 per cent and contribute the excess to the government’s central budget to help support citizens whose livelihoods have been affected by the Covid-19 outbreak,” he said.

 

“The RTP has a relatively low investment budget compared with other agencies, so the budget cut has gone smoothly with minimal impacts.”

 

Pol Maj Gen Phanuphong Chobpheun, director of the RTP Budget and Finance Office, explained that of the Bt657 million to be transferred back to the Budget Bureau, Bt119 million is from the RTP’s current expenditure while Bt538 is from investment expenditure.

 

“The budget cut will affect some RTP projects in 2020 and 2021,” he said.

 

“Among projects that will be affected are the purchase of 1,122 new patrol cars, the construction of a new Public Security Police Headquarters in Bangkok’s Laksi district, the procurement of X-ray equipment for vehicle screening checkpoints in Yala province, and the firearms and ammunitions database system.

 

“However, the government is considering providing an additional Bt2.7 billion in budget for the RTP to deploy Covid-19 checkpoints nationwide, which should help ensure smooth police operations to control the outbreak,” he said.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30386712

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-04-24

 

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it's perfectly obvious why the military should pass on a lot of its budget - they already have far more stuff than they need. The police, however, always look underfunded in many ways: transportation, technology, training, etc etc. So giving money back just looks like a knee-jerk "hey, we want to look good too" reaction rather than a sensible move.

Hope this doesn't mean they will be asking for MORE tea money.

49 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

Hope this doesn't mean they will be asking for MORE tea money.

I'm sure the lower levels will be told they have to work harder to make up the lost budget somehow.

If all departments can forfeit 10% of their budgets so easily they clearly are getting too much in the way of funds in the first place!

 

Guess the were 'ordered' to cut their budget!

Why am I not impressed? 

Edited April 25, 20206 yr by Dap

Bit of a joke that, they just spent millions on electric cars, which they did not need, just for show.