Speaking at a meeting on preparation of annual budget for the fiscal year 2017 held yesterday, Prayut, who is also National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) chief, asked everyone to reduce spending to boost the country’s revenues. “Every person in the nation, especially civil servants, must help find ways to raise our income to exceed spending … From fiscal 2015 budget, we have to tighten our budgets,” Prayut said.

The country has not had enough money to cover its spending as shown in its deficits over the past few years.

Prayut said every project proposal at the initial stage must show forecasts and strategies on how much return on investment would be received. “Any proposal that can be implemented within the planned timeframe might be revoked so that we can use the budget to spend on other projects instead, he said. He also emphasised that we must be prepared in areas such as human resources, research and development and social welfare how to respond to the global economic revolution.

He said that this year, the NCPO would have to complete some of reforms that were easy to carry out while moving ahead with the country’s 20-year strategic plan simultaneously.

There would be also an assessment every five years.