The Cabinet under Thaksin Shinawatra’s leadership has issued more than 13,000 resolutions during the past four years.
“When compared with previous cabinets, it’s clear that the outgoing one has efficiently speeded up the meeting process by removing unnecessary agendas from the meetings and having seven deputy prime ministers screening agendas in advance,” outgoing Cabinet secretary-general Borwornsak Uwanno said yesterday at a press conference.
For example, it was unnecessary for the Cabinet to review agendas that had already been governed by clear regulations and thus these agendas were not included in meetings, he said.
There were 209 Cabinet meetings between 19 February 2001 and yesterday. Eighteen were mobile Cabinets.
“The Cabinet has also reached out to people in local areas through its mobile meetings,” Borwornsak said.
He added that Thaksin had allowed provincial governors and local people to speak out freely when the Cabinet visited provinces.
Borwornsak also said that the introduction of computers into the Cabinet meeting room had reduced the use of paper, saving about 7.8 million pages.
An informed source said the Secretariat of the Cabinet had also drawn up a table comparing resolutions passed by the Thaksin-led administration and others.
The table showed the Cabinet under Chuan Leekpai’s leadership had passed 10,489 resolutions, while the Chavalit Yongchaiyudh-headed Cabinet had passed a mere 3,360.
However, Chuan was a premier twice and it was unclear which term had been compared to that of Thaksin’s administration. Each of Chuan’s terms lasted less than two years.
Chavalit served as premier for just one year.
Published on March 09, 2005
