THE CABINET yesterday approved a Bt8.8-billion purchase of eight T-50TH Golden Eagle fighter training aircraft from Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) of South Korea, which the military said would not be too much of a burden on the national budget.

The purchase of the aircraft brings the total value of military hardware bought under the ruling junta since the coup of 2014 to a total of Bt 72.7 billion.

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha said the new pilot trainers will replace the retiring, out-of-date fleet of L-39ZA/ART jets from Czechoslovakia, which have been in use for more than two decades and have high maintenance costs.

The new aircraft are being bought to keep up with the modern technology of the Saab JAS-39C/D Gripen aircraft that the Air Force currently uses, Prayut said.

“It will only bring more damage if we provide insufficient training [to pilots],” Prayut said. “Also, I assure you that we are not bound by any party when it comes to hardware purchase.”

The Thai Air Force also uses an upgraded version of the F-16 A/B fighting jets from the United States.

Air Force sources said that the South Korean aircraft’s features are similar to the F-16 fighters but they are less expensive.

The purchase would be done in a government-to-government deal, according to Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan. “The deal will be done transparently,” he told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

Documents and details on the Cabinet’s approval were not revealed as they were marked confidential, a usual practice when the government considers procurement of military hardware.

The new procurement constitutes the second batch of T-50THs. The Air Force signed a Bt3.7-billion contract with KAI to buy four T-50THs in September 2015, with delivery due in 2018.

Defence Ministry Spokesperson Maj-General Kongcheep Tantrawanich said the Cabinet had already approved in principle the purchase of the jets last October.

However, the Defence Ministry still needed to propose the purchase to the Cabinet yesterday, as it is regulated that any procurement worth more than a billion baht needs to receive Cabinet approval, he said.

The Bt-8.8-billion procurement will be part of the Air Force’s budgets for three fiscal years.

The deal is expected to be signed with KIA on July 29.

These eight jets should be delivered within 34 months after the deal is penned, Kongcheep said.

Thailand will be the fourth country to be equipped with T-50TH jets after South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Since the junta government came to power in 2014, the military government has approved procurements of 38 VT-4 tanks, 34 VN1 Armour Personal Carriers, 10 helicopters, 10 offshore patrol vessels, 12 fighter jets and a submarine.

Big lots of the hardware, such as tanks and a submarine, were bought from China, while some items were purchased from the US, such as Black Hawk helicopters and Harpoon Block II Missiles.

The purchase of the aircraft brings the total value of military hardware bought under the ruling junta since the coup of 2014 to a total of Bt 72.7 billion.

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha said the new pilot trainers will replace the retiring, out-of-date fleet of L-39ZA/ART jets from Czechoslovakia, which have been in use for more than two decades and have high maintenance costs.

The new aircraft are being bought to keep up with the modern technology of the Saab JAS-39C/D Gripen aircraft that the Air Force currently uses, Prayut said.

“It will only bring more damage if we provide insufficient training [to pilots],” Prayut said. “Also, I assure you that we are not bound by any party when it comes to hardware purchase.”

The Thai Air Force also uses an upgraded version of the F-16 A/B fighting jets from the United States.

Air Force sources said that the South Korean aircraft’s features are similar to the F-16 fighters but they are less expensive.

The purchase would be done in a government-to-government deal, according to Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan. “The deal will be done transparently,” he told reporters after the Cabinet meeting.

Documents and details on the Cabinet’s approval were not revealed as they were marked confidential, a usual practice when the government considers procurement of military hardware.

The new procurement constitutes the second batch of T-50THs. The Air Force signed a Bt3.7-billion contract with KAI to buy four T-50THs in September 2015, with delivery due in 2018.

Some of the key figures will be caught up in other work this week, therefore it has been decided to postpone the panel’s formation until next week when everyone is ready, Jate Siratharanont said.

“After its establishment, the joint committee has to finish revising the draft in 15 days. So, if we set up the panel this week and some key members cannot work, we will just waste days,” he explained.

The joint committee will settle the ongoing disagreement over some of the primary voting clauses in the law, in order to ensure fair elections under the newly introduced system.

The bill is the second of four organic bills endorsed by the NLA that are essential to the coming election, the first being the Election Commission draft bill.

The Constitution Drafting Commission, which had drafted and proposed the political parties bill, recently expressed its objections to the NLA’s endorsement, citing a perceived weakness and potential unfairness in the recently introduced primary voting system.

It officially submitted its objections in writing, which led to the proposition that a joint law review committee be set up to review the bill.

General Somjate Boonthanom, chairman of the NLA committee responsible for vetting the organic law, said on Tuesday that his panel was willing to revise the NLA-approved draft to ensure a fair election process under the primary voting system.

The list came under the spotlight when the Isra News Agency obtained a letter sent from the Secretariat of the Cabinet Office to the premier’s deputies and Cabinet members. The letter firmly addressed a June 29 Cabinet resolution that showed guidelines for selecting top officials to take up the soon-to-be-vacated positions.

Besides placing candidates into three main groups based on their seniority and creativity, the resolution suggested that candidates must possess vision and be capable of performing their duties in line with the government’s 20-year national strategy as well as future reform plans as addressed in the charter.

These, the letter noted, would be counted as the most critical criteria for selection.

A source at Government House had earlier said that the Cabinet would consider the matter yesterday.

Among the retiring officials is Prime Minister’s Office permanent secretary Jirachai Moonthongroy, who once chaired the Tort Liability Investigation Committee looking into the financial damage to the state caused by the Yingluck Shinawatra government’s rice-pledging scheme.

The secretary-general to the National Security Council, General Taweep Netniyom, and the director of the National Intelligence Agency, Ravee Prachuabmoh, are among those due to retire later this year.

The permanent secretaries at the Interior, Social Development and Human Security, Labour, Energy, Commerce, Public Health, and Industry ministries will also be replaced.

But Nikorn Chamnong urged the ruling junta to also lift its ban on political gatherings so the parties can begin preparing for the new “primary voting” system under which MPs candidates for an election are to be primarily chosen.

The bill under consideration is to be submitted next to a newly established joint law-review committee. The proposed primary voting system has been its most contentious point.

The National Legislative Assembly endorsed the bill last month, but drafters of the law who question the constitutionality of any points can take their objections to the review committee.

CDC spokesperson Udom Ratamarit said on Sunday the commission had met with the NLA’s law-vetting committee and it was agreed that the primary voting system should be retained.

He said the CDC believed the system would not require parties to have members in every constituency they contest, as some feared. It should be sufficient to have branches in each province or more than 100 members per province, Udom said.

He said the CDC also believed that, to shorten the primary voting process, the parties’ executives and selection committees should be allowed to choose their MP candidates by consensus, whether constituency or party-list, in the event that two or more candidates garner the same number of votes in primary voting.

The draft bill had originally stipulated that additional rounds of primary voting take place if any choices of MP candidates remained unsettled.

The bill makes parties responsible for managing their own primary voting, including dealing with any complaints and charges of corruption.

Udom said the CDC believed that party leaders and other executive members found negligent in meeting that responsibility should face a Bt10,000 fine or six months’ imprisonment.

To make the system more flexible for the parties, he said, it would no longer be mandatory for them to name their leaders as their first party-list MP candidate.

He said the CDC was considering punitive measures for buying or selling votes during primary voting. Though the details have yet to be worked out, he said, it’s agreed that the punishment should be on a par with measures imposed for wrongdoing during a general election.

Udom also said the Election Commission should not have the authority to warn or suspend any candidate during primary voting.