Satit debated the Ministry of Interior budget, revealing three main issues of local exam fraud. He condemned the concealment of over 173 million baht in exam application fees nationwide, which were never disclosed in the state budget report. He urged the parliamentary committee to clarify, warning that a lack of response would be a disappointing failure to perform their duties.
At 13:20 on 9 September 2026 at the Parliament, Satit Wongnongtoey, party-list MP of the Democrat Party, spoke during the debate on the Ministry of Interior's budget under Section 20. He questioned why the committee reviewing the 2027 expenditure bill focused only on reducing the general equipment budget, neglecting to investigate the massive local exam fraud within the Department of Local Administration (DLA). He highlighted three main issues: 1. The 277 million baht IT budget requested by the DLA for cyber and system protection, yet in 2026 there were 115 incidents of data hacking and digital file tampering related to local government exams. The committee did not question or assess this area’s effectiveness. 2. Nearly 100 million baht was allocated for central board and subcommittee meeting allowances, but there was no retrospective audit on how many times meetings were paid during the fraud period, nor whether the government reclaimed any allowance paid to the corrupt officials. 3. In the DLA exam fraud case, with 438,277 applicants paying a 400 baht fee each, the department collected over 175.3 million baht outside the budget. Despite contracting a university to conduct exams for 133 million baht, a large surplus remained, which was never transparently reported in the state budget.
"The corruption in local government recruitment exams severely undermines integrity in the Thai civil service system. I call on the parliamentary committee to clarify this matter and propose that from now on, all exam application fees and local exam budgets must be fully integrated into the national budget system. This will enable the House of Representatives to conduct proper oversight. If the committee fails to provide answers on this issue, it would be a deeply disappointing failure of their duties," Satit stated.