Surachet revisits the two-year parliamentary debate over the 'cement soil weirs' after the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) inspected badly damaged plain concrete weirs in Phichit. He challenges the government: if it still insists the project is truly effective, will it dare to propose the project again and guarantee its results for two years?".,
On 11 June 2026, Mr. Surachet Praveenwongwut, a party-list Member of Parliament (MP) from the Prachachon Party, commented on the case where the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) inspected a weir construction project under the “1 Weir 1 Subdistrict” policy of the Phichit Provincial Administrative Organization. The inspection revealed the weirs were merely thin plain concrete structures, lacking beams and steel reinforcement, and collapsed just two months after completion. Surachet said the news reminded him of the "cement soil weirs" debate in the House of Representatives on 21 March 2024. Since becoming an MP, he admitted that day was when he faced the greatest pressure, as he succeeded in exposing wasteful, potentially corrupt budget spending and protecting taxpayers' money.
The cement soil weir project was clearly a budget scheme benefiting certain MPs who created it like handing out ready-made shirts in sizes S/M/L, selectively favoring their allies in a non-transparent manner. Detailed questioning in the 2024 budget committee convinced him that all 3,326 cement soil weirs were clearly created for personal gain, lacked cost-effectiveness, and—most importantly—the agency requesting the budget did not even dare to guarantee their performance for two years.
Surachet added that at that time, only a certain group of MPs tried to verbally guarantee the weirs would last three to five years, or some even claimed they would be permanently durable, contradicting the fact that the budget owner agency would not sign a performance guarantee even for two years. Ultimately, the House of Representatives, by majority vote, agreed to cut this budget following Surachet and the Move Forward Party's effort, despite them being a minority. This was the largest budget cut successfully achieved by the opposition, saving the nation 1,254,713,000 baht in taxpayers’ money. He is confident that had the budget not been cut, after more than two years, the public would have seen similar problems of deteriorated or potentially corrupt weirs across many areas nationwide, as reported in recent news.
He concluded that although the weir in the latest news from Phichit Provincial Administrative Organization is a different type and location, the principle is very similar—especially the issue of officials not daring to guarantee performance. Based on what he declared in parliament before, if the government is confident the cement soil weir project is genuinely effective, it can allocate central or next year’s budget to rebuild all 3,326 weirs in the original form and locations. The only condition is that the responsible agency must dare to sign a written guarantee of performance for at least two years to ensure the taxpayers’ money is not wasted.