The decision to broadcast the House committee's scrutiny of the 2027 budget has quietly become one of the most important democratic reforms in recent years. For the first time, the public can witness how nearly 3.8 trillion baht of taxpayers' money would be spent.
Budget committee meetings, once regarded as dry technical proceedings, now attract widespread public attention. Citizens have followed discussions, debated government priorities and questioned spending proposals that would previously have received little scrutiny. That is how representative democracy should function.
The annual budget is more than a financial dossier loaded with jargon. Understanding it will provide insight into our national priorities and how public resources are allocated. The amount in the pot is finite and every ministry, department and state agency must compete for its share.
Parliamentary floor debates on the annual budget have long been televised; not so the detailed sessions of the House's Special Committee vetting the budget, which began on July 2. Rigorous scrutiny usually takes place during the committee stage, where ministries and agencies must defend individual spending proposals. The broadcasts have already shown why public scrutiny matters.
Ministries have cited fashionable terms such as "artificial intelligence", "digital transformation" and "cloud computing" to justify funding requests for even unrelated schemes such as transport and water management. The broadcasts have also exposed questionable spending on underused or abandoned government buildings.
More importantly, the livestreams reveal something that official budget documents cannot: how decisions are justified. The public can see which lawmakers ask probing questions, which officials answer them directly and which agencies struggle to defend their spending requests.
That kind of visibility strengthens accountability far more effectively than polished budget summaries issued after the event.
Public scrutiny also encourages better behaviour. Officials and politicians are more likely to prepare thoroughly and support their proposals with evidence when they know taxpayers are watching. Openness cannot eliminate waste or political favouritism, but it makes both harder to conceal.
Transparency, however, should not depend on the novelty of a livestream. Budget scrutiny should be open to the public by default, with confidentiality reserved only where there is a compelling public interest.
Encouragingly, the Bangkok Metropolitan Council has also approved live broadcasts of budget committee meetings and the publication of voting records.
Coming only weeks after Parliament opened its own budget committee proceedings to public view, the move marks a second significant advance for transparency in a single month. The BMC's decision recognises that accountability extends beyond the final budget vote.
Other provincial administrations and local authorities should follow suit. These bodies could strengthen public trust by livestreaming their own budget deliberations and making their voting records readily available.
