Thai Parliament app launched to remind forgetful MPs
To cope with meetings failing because of absence and lack of quorums, the Secretariat of The House of Representatives has developed the ‘TH Parliament’ mobile app to notify the MPs of upcoming meetings. The ‘innovation’ presumes that MPs have failed to turn up because they simply forgot… that’s usually not the case.
Yesterday, Nattakarn Chochana, announced that the Information Technology Office had developed an application named TH Parliament to improve parliamentary communication. Nattakarn explained that the application would notify MPs of upcoming meetings and allow members to request an official leave of absence. Nattakarn said the parliament hopes this application would make the meetings go more smoothly and solve the problem of a lack of MPs turning up to participate.
The parliament would usually have meetings on Wednesdays and Thursdays. But to increase the effectiveness and productivity of parliamentary sittings, the secretary announced that the parliament would add more special meetings on Fridays, twice a month. The schedule of the two special meetings would be sent to MPs via the new application. If there are no special meetings, the parliament would simply extend the meeting period on Wednesdays and Thursdays by about one to 2 hours if needed.
There are 474 MPs in Thailand’s parliament, and at least 237 members are required for a quorum. Thai media reported that the parliament meetings had failed recently due to a lack of quorum 17 times within the last 3 years.
Some members presented themselves at the start of meetings then walked out later, while others showed that they were present by leaving their MP cards with colleagues. The last time this happened was on February 10. There were only 227 MPs in the meeting. The President of the Thai National Assembly, Chuan Leekpai, had to announce the cancellation of the meeting after MPs spent more than 30 minutes blaming absent members.
MPs often cited problems with either having Covid, or family members coping with Covid as excuses.
SOURCE: Khaosod | Thansettakij | Channel 3
