A court ruling intended to restore a single line in Bangkok’s ambitious new budget triggered the accidental release of 11.84 billion baht (about €310 million) to district offices on Thursday, after the city’s payment system treated the judgment as a command to revive thousands of expired spending allocations. Officials said Friday that most of the money had been frozen, but 41 million baht had already gone to suppliers.
The administrative court in Bangkok had ruled that the city could not cap district repair funds without a fresh council vote. It ordered a temporary return to the previous year’s funding formula; it did not direct officials to transfer cash or approve new purchases. The city says its software restored gross allocations rather than the smaller sums left unspent.
The first transfer alert arrived at 11:01, according to Hira Raj, the city comptroller. Within 47 minutes, the treasury system had processed 3,206 payment authorisations, many linked to work orders that had expired months earlier. District offices were told to stop purchases as finance staff worked through the account list.
Governor Anan Buran, who had campaigned for a more forceful first budget, said the ruling exposed a failure in the city’s controls, not a flaw in the judgment. “I asked for a bolder budget. I did not ask for a time machine,” he told reporters outside the city administration building. He ordered an immediate freeze on unspent transfers.
I asked for a bolder budget. I did not ask for a time machine.
Anan Buran, Bangkok governor
The error arose from a field in the treasury system labelled “restore appropriation status”, Raj said. Staff expected it to reinstate accounting authority while keeping old balances closed; the software instead reopened payment permissions attached to the previous year’s allocations. Raj said a manual review had not caught the setting before the ruling was entered.
The cash moved in minutes
By Friday morning, 8.96 billion baht had been locked, city officials said. The remaining balance included 41 million baht paid for drainage pumps and road materials, with another 112 million baht placed in supplier accounts but not yet withdrawn. The administration has asked recipients to return or suspend those payments while it checks each transaction.
Nikita Nigam, a councillor representing one of the city’s 50 districts, said her office received a transfer notice before staff understood why its repair ceiling had suddenly expanded. “We had no authority to spend it, and we stopped the orders as soon as the call came,” she said. She said the district had not received a usable bank balance.
Budget fight turns technical
The judgment followed a challenge to Buran’s first budget, which cut the districts’ combined repair allocation and redirected money towards drainage, buses and public clinics. The governor had said he wanted a more radical plan but settled for a narrower package after council negotiations. The court’s temporary order leaves the disputed budget unresolved until the council votes again.
The city administration said it would provide a transaction-by-transaction account to councillors on Monday and ask the court to clarify how the temporary funding formula should be applied. No public services were suspended on Friday, but officials warned that some routine repairs could be delayed while district accounts remain under review.
