Thailand Development Research Institute president Somkiat Tangkitvanich said this yesterday when commenting on the new NBTC law at a seminar on the commission’s performance over the past five years and the future of the telecommunications industry. The event was hosted by the NBTC Policy Watch project.

He said a draft of the law required contenders for the seven NBTC board seats to be aged between 45 and 65 and that they must be high-ranking police or military officers, directors of the state enterprise, associate professors or private sector executives of companies with more than Bt3 billion in revenue a year. These qualifications blocked young talent from start-up business contending for the seats, he said.

‘Candidates mainly bureaucrats’

Somkiat said that based on this requirement the candidates would largely be made up of bureaucrats and this could affect freedom of the press and the protection of consumers as most of them may not give importance to these issues.

He said the selection committee for the board would be mainly made up of members of judicial bodies, and they would have no expertise in the telecom and broadcasting industries.

According to his interpretation, the draft of the new NBTC law opens the way for the use of “beauty contests” to reallocate TV broadcasting spectra, besides the auction method, and the former may not be able to ensure the utmost fairness and transparency in spectrum reassignment.

The new method would result in licences being granted to bidders with the most feasible business-model proposals.

The draft law is being considered by the National Legislative Assembly’s science and mass communications committee following Cabinet’s recent approval of the draft.

According to the draft, the board would be made up of seven members, a reduction from the present 11. Each of the seven will come from a specific background: radio broadcasting, TV broadcasting, telecommunications, engineering, law, economics, and consumer protection. However, it is not a requirement that each of these fields is represented on the board.

The ICT Ministry permanent secretary will appoint a seven-member committee to select the board. The panel will be made up of the chairmen of the Constitution Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administration Court, the Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Office of the Auditor-General and the Ombudsman Office, and the governor of the Bank of Thailand.

After receiving the list of candidates, the selection committee would reduce the number of applicants to 14 within 30 days. Then it will submit the list of 14 candidates for the Senate to consider within 30 days.

The ICT Ministry will have to start the selection process of the new board at least 150 days ahead of the expiry date of existing members’ terms – October 2017.