Thai Health Promotion Foundation's (ThaiHealth) budget freeze is causing impacts on its grantees, complained civic groups.
As a result of the investigation of the Auditing Committee on Fiscal Expenditure (MACFE), projects funded by ThaiHealth with grants of more than five million baht a year must seek approval from the MACFE before the grants are transferred.
This has pushed many ThaiHealth grantees into difficult situations as they cannot get funds for the time being.
Prasong Lertratanawisute, director of the Isra Institute, said there would be some impacts if ThaiHealth is unable to fund the institute anymore.
"We may have to work harder to raise funds if we don't have ThaiHealth's help. But that is normal," he said.
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The institute is partly funded by ThaiHealth. The rest comes from other funding sources including the private sector and a number of foundations.
In the past eight years, ThaiHealth contributed a total of 96 million baht to the Isra Institute, which acts as an intermediary for other grantees from media organisations including the Thai Journalists Association and the National Press Council of Thailand.
The fund had been used on various activities including training, research, media award arrangements and scholarships for journalists.
The definition of well-being covers physical and mental health which may be affected by the environment, said Mr Prasong.
Poor media content will have a negative impact on the quality of life and health of the people, he said, adding reporters deserve training to improve their abilities.
Some organisations' anti-tobacco work also faced difficulties in paying salaries to employees in the past two months, said Lakkhana Termsirikulchai, manager of Networking and Capacity Building for Tobacco Control.
"These people have worked for the public's benefit. But they also need to earn to survive," she said. She raised concerns that the government's budget inspectors such as the MACFE do not understand the health perspective.
And before they will understand, she said, the impacts on people's health will already have occurred.
Kamron Chudecha, coordinator of the Network of Alcohol Marketing Strategy, complained he could not work to encourage people not to drink before the New Year due to the frozen budget.
He explained a number of small projects, with funds under five million baht, have also been affected as some of them are sub-projects, managed under main projects with funding of over five million baht.
He said most campaigns by civic groups have been launched to complement the government's policy, to encourage better health for the public.
Songkran Pakchokdee, director of the Stop Drink Network and one of the seven suspended executives, admitted the government's investigation has left the anti-alcohol campaign in trouble.
Activists of the Stop Drink Network Activists, seen above urging holidaymakers not to give alcoholic presents, have run out of money because of the government's actions against ThaiHealth. (Photo by Apichart Jinakul)