The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has set its fiscal 2024 budget at 90 billion baht under the zero-based budgeting framework proposed by the Move Forward Party, BMA Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said on Wednesday as he expressed the BMA’s readiness to work with the new government.

Zero-based budgeting is one of the key topics in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Move Forward Party and its seven coalition partners announced earlier this week.

This budgeting approach is new to Thailand and requires all agencies to justify their budgetary needs each year. Instead of basing them on previous budget data, agencies have to base them on future needs and objectives.

Chadchart said on Wednesday after a meeting with BMA executives that the city expected to have a balanced budget in fiscal 2024.

The budget has been drafted based on the zero-based budgeting framework, in which all items have been adjusted to zero before considering the expenses for each project.

“The BMA will carefully consider existing projects and will drop them if they are no longer necessary or not worth continuing. This way, we can ensure that only projects that are necessary or beneficial are included in the budget plan,” he said. “However, this budget plan must be approved by the city council before it can be implemented.”

Chadchart said he has studied Move Forward’s MoU with its coalition partners to ensure that the BMA can seamlessly work with the new government.

Several of the city’s current projects are in line with topics highlighted in the MoU, such as transparency of administration, use of modern technology to improve work processes, and zero-based budgeting.

“The BMA is a local administration unit. We should have no problem in following the policies of the central government,” Chadchart said.

The governor added that he also planned to propose measures to tackle immediate issues facing Bangkok with the new government, including the air pollution caused by PM2.5 fine dust, the upgrading of Bangkok Port, the transformation of unused public lands into public parks and sports grounds, public transport improvement, and the cost of living.

“If the new government supports these measures, the city is confident that we can fix the problems and ensure maximum benefits to Bangkokians,” he said.