Disposing of Government Assets After the Annual Inspection: Fact-Finding, Auction, Conversion, Writing Off the Register, and Notifying the State Audit Office Within 30 Days — Public Sector Edition EP.6

1. Where EP.5 stopped, and the deadlines left in this cycle

In EP.5 we ended at the annual inspection report, filed with a copy to the State Audit Office of the Kingdom of Thailand (SAO) within 30 working days of the first day of inspection. An agency that started on Thursday 1 October 2026, deducting the public holidays on 13 and 23 October, reaches that line on Friday 13 November 2026 if the first day counts as day one, or Monday 16 November if counting starts the following day. Either way, this is the week the report lands on the agency head's desk, and that is where this article begins.

Two deadlines remain, and both must be kept apart from the 30 working days of the report: 60 days for the disposal and 30 days for notifying the SAO. Both are calendar days, not working days, and each counts from a different starting point. The table uses a hypothetical example in which the agency head signs the disposal order on Tuesday 1 December 2026.

Source: regulation clauses 213, 214, 215 and 218, and letter w 187. Dates in the example column count from a hypothetical order on 1 December 2026; agencies that order on another date recount. The 60 days run from the day after the order, so the order date itself is not day one. The 30 days for the SAO in the example count the day after removal as day one, following the general rule for counting periods.

2. The fact-finding committee does five things and ends in one of three ways

Clause 214 requires the person who receives the report and finds items damaged, deteriorated, lost or no longer needed to appoint a fact-finding committee, except where it is plainly normal wear from ordinary use or natural loss, in which case the agency head can order disposal directly. The regulation does not set the committee's size. The sample forms agencies have published appoint three people, one chair and two members, and write the number of working days for reporting into the order itself so this step does not float without a deadline.

The committee's duties, as set out in the Department of Agricultural Extension's manual on annual inspection and disposal (February 2022) and matched by other agency manuals we opened, come to five.

1. Check the physical condition against what the inspector reported.
2. Establish the cause item by item and decide whether anyone is liable, by questioning the people who used the item and reviewing documents such as repair and maintenance history.
3. Contact two or three second-hand dealers to estimate the value of the items proposed for disposal.
4. Reconsider the minimum price for reasonableness and take an average to set the reserve price for the auction.
5. Report the findings to the agency head.

The findings lead to one of three outcomes. First, nobody is liable and the item still exists or has value: propose a disposal method under clause 215. Second, someone is liable: proceed under the law on liability of officials for wrongful acts first, then dispose or write off. Third, the item is lost with no one identifiable as liable, or someone is liable but cannot pay, or the item exists but is not worth the clause 215 process: write it off as lost under clause 217, with the approval thresholds in section 5.

3. Five disposal routes, and who approves each

Clause 215 provides that after inspection, where an item is no longer needed or keeping it would be wasteful, the officer reports to the agency head, who orders one of four methods. Writing off as lost under clause 217 is the fifth route, for items that no longer exist or exist but are not worth the first four. The table summarises when each applies and who approves.

Source: regulation clauses 215 and 217 as reproduced in the manual of the Administration and Strategic Development Division, Prince of Songkla University, Surat Thani Campus, and the Department of Agricultural Extension manual (2022). The first four methods are normally completed within 60 days counted from the day after the agency head's order.

4. Auctions under the new w 187 guidance: what changed from w 82

On 17 March 2026 the Committee on Procurement and Supplies Administration Rulings at the Comptroller General's Department (CGD) issued letter no. 0405.4/w 187, revoking the earlier clarification letter w 82 of 22 February 2019 and replacing it with new guidance. The reason stated in the letter is that agencies were running auctions in different ways, which delayed the disposal of surplus items, turned items that were wasteful to keep into a maintenance burden, reduced their value, and ate storage space. The two-page letter sets two things.

1. Estimate the price before announcing. The responsible person estimates the value of the property before the auction notice, item type by item type, using one of two criteria: the price at which the item normally trades on the market, or the local price for its current condition at the time of sale, with a comparison of prices where appropriate; or, for items not generally sold, a price based on the nature, type and kind of item, its service life, condition and location. All of this sits within the agency head's discretion, having regard to the agency's interest.
2. The sale method. Once the agency head approves the estimate, the responsible person announces the auction, applying the public auction provisions of the Civil and Commercial Code by analogy. The letter also defines "an auction that did not produce a good result", which the earlier w 82 left undefined: no bidder, or a bidder whose price is unsuitable or too low, or a bidder who refuses to pay. When any of these applies, the agency may choose either to auction again or to apply the purchasing methods by analogy for the next attempt.

Two further points belong in the notice from the first draft. First, w 187 requires a condition that if the highest bidder does not pay, the agency will put the item up for sale again, and if the later sale fetches less than the earlier winning bid, the original highest bidder must pay the shortfall to the agency. Second, land for which a specific law prescribes the method of disposal follows clause 202 paragraph one and does not need to go to auction under clause 215 first.

Source: regulation clause 215 (1) and letter w 187. "Advisable" in the price-estimate column is our recommendation drawn from agency manuals; the regulation and w 187 make the estimate mandatory for public auctions.

Auction day itself is described in detail in the Department of Agricultural Extension manual and can be used as a reference by other agencies. Before the sale, send the notice to the CGD or the provincial treasury office and to the Public Relations Department, post it at the agency, and publish it on the agency website. The notice must state the purpose, where to obtain the item list and conditions, the number of items, and the date, time and place of sale. Keep a list of everyone who collects the details. On the day, the disposal committee registers bidders: individuals with a copy of their ID card, legal entities adding a company certificate issued within six months and a power of attorney. The committee explains the conditions before starting, auctions item by item or in groups, accepts no bid below the reserve price, awards to the highest bidder, and takes payment immediately when bidding closes or as the finance section's conditions provide. The report to the agency head attaches copies of receipts, the list of people who collected details, the winning bidders' documents, the notice and the item list.

5. Writing off as lost: who approves at each value band

Clause 217 covers three cases: an item lost with no identifiable liable person, a liable person who cannot pay, or an item that exists but is not worth the clause 215 process. Approval authority is split by the combined purchase or acquisition price, not by the net book value after depreciation. A computer bought for 1,200,000 baht eight years ago sits in the above-1,000,000-baht band even if its book value is one baht (depreciation is covered in EP.2).

Source: regulation clause 217 (1), (2) (a) (b) (c) and the final paragraph.

What separates a write-off from an ordinary disposal is the evidence file. A sale or transfer has an item, a recipient, and a receipt or handover record. A write-off has none of those, so the file has to answer the questions instead: the fact-finding report explaining why no liable person was found, or why the liable person cannot pay; evidence of any action under the liability law; and the purchase or acquisition price from the register, to show the request went to the right level of approver.

6. Where the money goes, then removal, the SAO and the registrar

Clause 216 directs that proceeds of disposal follow the law on budget procedure, or the financial law applicable to the agency, or the terms of any loan or grant agreement, as the case may be. For ordinary government departments, the Department of Agricultural Extension manual has the proceeds remitted as state revenue, with the remittance evidence from GFMIS (Government Fiscal Management Information System) attached to the disposal report. Agencies with their own revenue, such as universities, book it as agency income: the Prince of Songkla University Surat Thani manual has the money remitted as university revenue. In no case is it money the supplies unit keeps for its own use. The differences between the three fund types are explained in the three pots of money in a Thai government agency.

Clause 218 sets three things to do after disposal or write-off. First, the officer removes the item from the books or register immediately. Second, notify the SAO within 30 days of the date of removal. Third, for items that must be registered by law, notify the registrar within the time that law sets. For cars and motorcycles, the Department of Agricultural Extension manual has the agency declare the vehicle permanently out of use, return the licence plates and send the auction details to the local land transport office, issue one receipt per vehicle before handing the registration book to the winning bidder, and have the committee remove the agency's emblem and name from the vehicle before handover.

The regulation prescribes no form for the SAO letter. A sample form set published by a primary education service area office addresses it to the director of the regional State Audit Office and attaches copies of nine documents, which make a useful file checklist from the first step.

1. The order appointing the annual inspection committee, with copies of the orders appointing the supplies officer and the chief supplies officer
2. The annual inspection report
3. The order appointing the fact-finding committee
4. The fact-finding report
5. The request for approval to dispose, with the method, and the approval order
6. The orders appointing the disposal committees, such as the reserve-price committee and the auction committee
7. The list of items that are damaged, deteriorated, lost or no longer needed
8. The disposal report
9. Copies of receipts or remittance evidence (the source form says school maintenance fees, reflecting its school context; other agencies substitute evidence of remittance as state or agency revenue)

7. Mistakes that agencies have recorded themselves

We do not invent a list of "misconceptions". This table includes only problems that a government agency or an auditor has stated in a public document, with the source.

8. What the system has to do so the disposal round finishes on time

Three parties are involved in this article's work: the committee that investigates and prices, the agency head who orders, and the supplies and accounting officers who remove items and notify the SAO. What we see in implementation work is that items rarely slip because people do not know the regulation. They slip because the status of each item lives in someone's head rather than in a system. When that person moves or other work intervenes, an item already sold stays in the register, or has been removed but nobody knows the date by which the SAO must be told. The criteria for judging a system for the disposal round are few.

• Per-item status following the regulation's cycle: in use, awaiting fact-finding, awaiting disposal, disposed, removed from register, SAO notified, each with its date, so anyone can see which item is stuck at which step and what its deadline is
• Purchase or acquisition price on every record, because the 500,000-baht line in clause 215 and the 1,000,000-baht line in clause 217 are measured against it; donated or transferred items need an acquisition value recorded from the day they are registered
• One data set for the register and the accounts, so that one removal closes the asset register entry and retires the accounting asset at the same time, with no reconciliation of two databases before the financial report
• Documents attached to the item: the fact-finding report, dealer quotations, the notice, receipts and the SAO letter, linked to the item so the nine-item checklist in section 6 can be pulled from the system rather than hunted through paper files
• A record of who changed what and when (audit log), because the auditor's question about disposal is who changed the status and on which day

Saeree ERP's fixed-asset module is designed around this cycle: registration with asset codes, automatic depreciation by category, counting by barcode or QR code from a phone with instant comparison against the register, alerts for items due for disposal, an online register and a management dashboard, an audit log, and one database shared with accounting, supplies and budget. The government agencies using it and what the system supports are on Saeree ERP for government agencies. The digital asset register is covered in EP.4, the full lifecycle from acquisition to disposal in EP.3, and the accounting side of fixed assets in the fixed-asset module in an ERP.

Conclusion

• Once the inspection report reaches the agency head (around 13 or 16 November 2026 for agencies that started on 1 October), appoint a fact-finding committee under clause 214, except for normal wear or natural loss, which can go straight to disposal.
• The committee does five things: checks the items, establishes cause and liability, contacts two or three dealers, sets the reserve price, and reports. The findings lead to disposal, action under the liability law, or a write-off as lost.
• Disposal has four methods, sale, exchange, transfer, and conversion or destruction, normally completed within 60 days from the day after the order, which is given by the agency head or a delegated officer.
• Sales go to auction first under w 187 (17 March 2026, revoking w 82): estimate the price under one of two criteria, get the agency head's approval, apply the Civil and Commercial Code by analogy, and include the condition that a defaulting highest bidder pays any shortfall. The exception is a combined purchase price of 500,000 baht or less, which may be sold by the specific method.
• Write-offs as lost up to 1,000,000 baht (purchase or acquisition price) are approved by the agency head; above that, central and provincial bodies go to the Ministry of Finance and local bodies to the provincial governor.
• When done, remove the item from the books or register immediately, notify the SAO within 30 days of removal, notify the registrar for vehicles or land, and remit the proceeds under the budget law or the agency's financial regulation.

Disposal does not end on the day the money comes in. It ends on the day the register, the accounts and the letter to the State Audit Office all say the same thing. When those three are done by different people in different systems, an item that was sold stays in the register until next year's inspection.

- Sureeraya Limpaibul, Saeree ERP

References

• Ministry of Finance Regulation on Public Procurement and Supplies Administration B.E. 2560 (2017), Chapter 9 Supplies Administration, Part 4 Disposal, clauses 214–219 (Thai Government Procurement system, Comptroller General's Department)
• Comptroller General's Department guidance on disposal by public auction under clause 215 paragraph one (1), letter no. 0405.4/w 187 dated 17 March 2026 (published by the Ministry of Commerce Finance Division)
• Full two-page copy of letter w 187 (Yotathai knowledge bank, 18 March 2026)
• Letter no. 0405.2/w 82 dated 22 February 2019, clarification on disposal by public auction (revoked by w 187)
• Manual on Annual Supplies Inspection and Disposal, Finance Division, Department of Agricultural Extension (February 2022), Chapter 4 Disposal
• Manual on Disposal by the Specific Method and by Public Auction, Budget and Supplies Section, Administration and Strategic Development Division, Prince of Songkla University, Surat Thani Campus (reproducing clauses 215–219)
• Sample form set for annual inspection and disposal (fact-finding committee order, auction notice, State Audit Office letter, state revenue remittance letter), Sisaket Primary Educational Service Area Office 4
• Thai Post: NACC office responds to State Audit Office findings on its FY2023 spending, deficiencies at 16 units (29 March 2025)
• State Audit Office of the Kingdom of Thailand