The committee raised its concerns after a visit early this week led by its deputy chairman, ACM Boonyarit Kerdsuk

The visit was aimed at following up on ongoing renovations and inspecting services at the airport following numerous complaints from passengers, tour companies, media and government departments.

Director of Phuket International Airport Petch Chancharoen took the committee on a tour to observe the renovations, customer service, check-in counters, immigration service and sitting areas of both the domestic and international terminals. A meeting to discuss problems and management development followed.

After the tour, Boonyarit said that there was not nearly enough seating at the terminals, because about 60 per cent of the area had been set aside for shops. He said some of the shops even hid the beautiful landscaping of the runway and the sea views.

“There should be spaces for passengers to wait for their flights. It should be at least 70 per cent for passengers and 30 per cent for the shops,” he said.

He said the topic needed to be discussed with the whole committee, as “we do not want Phuket Airport to become another mall”.

Boonyarit said that Phuket International Airport must develop better services for both arrivals and departures, including immigration, customs and police.

ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) safety standards still needed to be improved as Phuket Airport has limitations in terms of geography, he said.

“There should be more and better air-conditioning as well. Some spots in the domestic terminal are very hot because of the unfinished renovation,” he added.

Boonyarit also suggested that the airport make more announcements on the effects to flights due to current runway and taxiway maintenance, especially during April when the number of passengers would increase.

Meanwhile, Petch said obstacles at the airport recently included a lack of facilities, problems with lighting and electricity systems, and urgent runway-surface repairs.

“The whole renovation hasn’t yet finished, but when it finishes, the airport will have a capacity of 12.5 million passengers. The number of tourists in Phuket last year exceeded 16.5 million people, so the demand already exceeds management and capacity limits, but we are trying our best.”

Boonyarit said he would bring a report from this visit to discuss with government officials and individual sectors from the four Andaman provinces.

IN A SURPRISE MOVE, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has put the brakes on a controversial proposal to help financially troubled broadcasting and telecoms firms following criticism from top academics.

The premier said the government would employ “appropriate” measures to help the two sectors after deciding not to exercise his sweeping powers under Article 44 enshrined in the Constitution to grant multi-billion-baht debt moratoriums to nearly two dozen digital TV licensees and two 4G telecoms bid winners.

The debt moratoriums were recently proposed by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) following a meeting chaired by deputy premier Wissanu Krea-ngam with private sector representatives.

However, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), sharply criticised the proposal, especially regarding financial benefits for True and AIS, which owe the government nearly Bt60 billion in unpaid spectrum fees.

Somkiat also voiced opposition to a three-year debt moratorium for digital TV broadcasters, arguing that only one of three factors cited by the NBTC for helping the licensees was acceptable – the state agency’s inability to implement the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting smoothly.

The other two factors of rapid technology change and an oversupply of broadcasters were regarded as normal business risks that were the responsibility of the private sector.

Prayut said he would ensure fairness in helping both sectors and the Central Administrative Court’s recent verdict would be a precedent.

Wissanu will schedule another meeting with the NBTC to resolve the issue under an Article 44 order.

“I haven’t decided anything yet. After all, we have to come up with suitable measures,” Prayut said after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.

On March 13, the Central Administrative Court ordered the NBTC to return billion-baht bank guarantees to Thai TV, the licensee for two digital television stations, which had failed to pay NBTC licence fees while citing unfavourable business conditions.

Citing the premier’s remarks, NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said certain private-sector industries should not be given advantages as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) was worried it would be accused of unduly favouring specific private operators.

Regarding digital TV licence holders, the government had been asked to ease their financial problems by granting a three-year grace period for remaining instalments on their up-front licence fees and halving their terrestrial broadcasting network rental fees for two years.

For the telecoms sector, Advanced Wireless Network (AWN) and TrueMove H Universal Communication, both of which hold NBTC 900MHz licences, had asked the junta to let them split their fourth and final instalments on up-front fee payments for spectrum auction bids into five tranches.

AWN and TrueMove H are each required to pay final instalment payments of about Bt60 billion in 2019.

Somkiat said earlier that neither the government nor the NBTC should be held responsible for losses incurred by licence holders as a result of a glut of available channels and viewers shifting to alternative platforms.

A stock analyst, who declined to be named, said yesterday that he had disagreed from the start with the notion that the government should be asked to step in to ease the financial burden of broadcasters and telecom operators.

Before taking part in the NBTC’s digital TV licence auction in 2013, bidders should have realised there would be intense competition in the industry as they knew that the regulator would be auctioning as many as 24 licences, he said.

He added that the best solution was to let the market mechanism take its course.

The Cabinet approved the guidelines at its meeting yesterday right after the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) put it forward. The guidelines, which require agencies to act quickly on corruption complaints, took immediate effect as several government schemes for the poor have lately been embroiled in graft scandals.

Investigations are ongoing into alleged irregularities in the disbursement of state funds for the destitute as well as the alleged embezzlement of Bt118 million from the Education Ministry’s fund for the underprivileged.

“Upon receiving or hearing corruption complaints, the chief of a relevant agency must launch a probe within seven days,” government spokesman Lt-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said. “The probe must also conclude within 30 days.”

He said that if the preliminary information showed evidence of corruption, an agency chief must transfer accused officials.

“The transfer can be made within the same agency or ministry, if the alleged offences are not serious,” he added.

However, the guidelines required that accused officials be transferred to another agency at least on a temporary basis if charges were serious.

According to the guidelines, the chief of a government agency must also take immediate disciplinary action against accused officials if an investigation finds evidence of wrongdoing.

“There is no need to wait until criminal proceedings conclude first,” Sansern said.

When alleged offences involve criminal wrongdoing, the Centre for National Anti-Corruption should be alerted.

Sansern said based on the guidelines, officials found guilty of grave disciplinary offences could not return to their old posts or be promoted for three years, since they had to be transferred because of the wrongdoing.

“This rule applies to officials whose offences do not warrant dismissals,” he said.

Among the 13 police members transferred yesterday, one was a police colonel and two were lieutenant colonels. This group of suspects also includes a commissioned policewoman.

In a related development, Social Development and Human Security Minister General Anantaporn Kanjanarat said he planned to punish five officials later this week for their role in the alleged embezzlement of state funds for the destitute.

“They are C7 and C8 officials,” he said, referring to bureaucratic rankings, which range from C1 to the highest of C11.

Anantaporn said he would act on the first conclusions of the investigation and would take further action when it was finished.

Asked whether the corruption scandal had already implicated the ministry’s permanent secretary and deputy permanent secretary, Anantaporn said: “Our probe has found that some officials gave the order.” He did not elaborate.

The national police Counter-Corruption Division also stated yesterday that 10 more temples had been found to have engaged in alleged embezzlement of state funds for monasteries.

A RESPECTED doctor has stood by his claims that there were bird-flu infections in Thailand last year, even after several senior government officials issued denials on Monday.

Dr Thiravat Hemachudha, who heads the Emerging Infectious Disease Health Science Centre at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, yesterday released details of bird-flu incidents to back up his claim.

Dr Thiravat Hemachudha

He said a full investigation into the deaths of several animals between August and September last year confirmed bird flu had occurred in Thailand.

“The Animal Health Research Centre for Lower Northeast [in Surin], for example, found all 40 small carnivores that became sick or died at a zoo were infected by H5N1,” he said.

According to the World Health Organisation, not all avian influenza viruses cause disease in humans but some can infect humans and cause severe infections. The most well-known of these is the H5N1 virus.

Thiravat added that he had already forwarded information he had to Public Health Minister Dr Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn.

On Monday, Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Grisada Boonrach insisted that bird flu had been eradicated in Thailand more than a decade ago and suggested that businesses affected by Thiravat’s claim could consider suing for compensation.

However, Thiravat has refused to back down, presenting further details about bird-flu cases that he said occurred in Thailand last year.

He said livestock officials had been alerted about suspicious animal deaths and went to investigate, while control measures were also implemented. For example, a zoo official with flu-like symptoms was prescribed Oseltamivir, which is often prescribed for people suspected of catching bird flu.

Thiravat said 32 zoo officials were also put on surveillance in the wake of bird-flu infections.

He added that the zoo had also temporarily closed its small-carnivore zone as a precaution and banned animal transport and fowl feed at its compound.

“Believing that zoo animals might have caught bird flu from quails, livestock officials also checked quail farms in four districts of Nakhon Ratchasima,” Thiravat said, in an apparent reference to the Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo.

The academic also released written communications between two doctors, whose names were withheld.

The conversation was a discussion on whether authorities should activate bird-flu responses and warnings. The two also discussed what medical equipment the Public Health Ministry would have to prepare in the event that bird flu spread.

Earlier this week, Thiravat said he had spoken up about bird-flu incidents in Thailand in the hope that relevant authorities would prepare a proper emergency response.

Thiravat said he was especially worried about the possibility the virus would spread from fowl to various other types of animals.

“Now, we see civets, fishing cats and crab-eating mongooses infected by the bird-flu virus,” he said. “What if the virus can pass on from these types of animals to humans?”

Livestock Development Department deputy director-general Jeerasak Pipattanapong-sophon said his agency had not found any spread of H5N1.

“We have inspected the Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo and it does not have a bird-flu problem either,” he said.

Akkapob Thongsawatwong, who heads the 3rd Regional Bureau of Animal Health and Sanitary, said although many deaths were reported at the zoo, they were not related to H5N1.

He said animal carcasses had been sent to the Animal Health Research Centre for Lower Northeast and results of detailed lab tests showed they were not positive to H5N1.

THE GOVERNMENT has been urged to create a legal mechanism to assure human-rights protections associated with Thailand’s outbound investment on the occasion of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights official visit to the country.

The Thai Extraterritorial Obligation-Watch Working Group (Thai ETO-Watch) released a statement yesterday demanding legal measures to prevent and mitigate human-rights violations by Thai investors overseas, after the group met with the UN delegation.

The UN group is paying is first official visit to Thailand in response to a government invitation.

During the visit, which will last until April 4, the UN group will inspect government and businesses’ implementation of human-rights obligations and responsibilities in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha announced the government’s commitment to endorse and implement the UNGPs last year.

Although businesses operating in the country are regulated to ensure investors’ accountability on human-rights and environmental protections, Thai ETO-Watch stated there were not similar mechanisms to regulate outbound investment, so people in destination countries were vulnerable to negative environmental and social impacts.

The group stated at least eight large investment projects involving Thai investors had been found to have caused adverse impacts to local citizens and violated people’s rights, including at sugarcane plantations in Cambodia, a coal-fired power plant in Laos and a tin mine in Myanmar.

The group also stated that affected people also faced legal barriers when making complaints and litigating against irresponsible Thai investors in Thailand.

Thai ETO-Watch demanded the government establish an official channel to receive complaints about overseas Thai investments, legislate to force investors to respect UNGPs and be responsible for rights violations, and set up a legal mechanism to ensure corporate social responsibility and prevent lawsuits.

The group added that investors had a duty to operate their businesses transparently, be responsible for impacts of their investments, and allow public participation to solve problems and provide proper remedies for people who affected by their projects.

“We call for Thai investors to conduct due diligence and to comply with the UNGPs and other international human-rights best practices and standards,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the UN group was meeting with authorities, businesses and civil-society organisations on the implementation of the UNGPs in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Samut Sakhon during its visit. The group will issue a report on its findings and provide recommendations about the situation of business and human-rights protections in Thailand after the visit.

He was addressing ongoing concern in the local community about the buildings and a military proposal to suspend the project.

“We are giving importance to environmental conservation and we are not just talking. On the COJ founding day, April 21, we will plant trees and do related activities. We understand the public’s concerns,” said Sarawut, citing the Bangkok-based Ratchadapisek Criminal Court’s solar-cell installation project as an example of the COJ’s awareness.

Sarawut said the COJ had coordinated with related agencies about the matter, and said the media should give the public “accurate and complete” information.

Construction was ongoing and the contractor slated to hand the buildings over to the COJ in June, he said.

“We’re trying to explain that what we are doing is with good intentions, with no aim to destroy the environment or cause damage to nature,” he said, adding that the COJ had to act within the law.

COJ spokesman Suriyan Hongwilai said the matter had involved people’s emotions and sentiments, adding that the COJ had tried to make people understand that officials in the buildings would coexist with the environment and local people.

Third Army Region 3 chief Lt-General Wijak Siribansop, meanwhile, said the appropriate use of the land was a matter for discussion by the COJ, the Royal Forestry Department and Treasury Department’s State Property Management Division. Wajak said his office had returned the land in question to the Treasury Department in 2004.

Adding that an investigation over the military’s proposal to suspend the project would conclude this week, Wijak said he believed construction had been carried out in an authorised area.

If the probe results confirmed that, building would proceed per the construction contract, Wijak said. He added that public sentiment should be taken into account, but that was different than the legality of the land use.

Sarawut Benjakul, secretary-general of the Office of the Judiciary, said in Bangkok on Tuesday that the chief justice of Region IV had investigated evidence showing the defendants chatting with a man and taking photos during a court session.

The investigation was held after photos surfaced of Preeyanuch Nonwangchai, Kawita Rachada and Jidarat Promkhun, who are all charged in connection with the murder and dismemberment of Warisara Klinjui in May last year, smiling at a camera while inside court premises.

Jidarat, who was freed on bail, apparently used her mobile phone to take photos of the other two defendants.

The screenshots that went viral displayed Jidarat’s profile photo but the phone seems to have been used by Preeyanuch to chat with a man.

No communication devices are allowed in courtrooms.

Two of the suspects are accused of murdering Warisara, dismembering her body and burying it in a forest, while Jidarat has been charged with receiving stolen goods.

The gruesome murder and suspects’ subsequent escape to Myanmar grabbed media headlines for months and when the women were taken into police custody, photos were leaked showing policemen taking selfies with them.

Jidarat was granted bail but was at court on March 13 as the prosecution’s witnesses started giving evidence.

Sarawut said judicial officials of Region IV had reported the photos had been taken during a court session on the afternoon of March 13.

Officials checked video footage from security cameras and invited people involved in the incident to give information.

The footage showed the three defendants using a mobile phone.

Their lawyer has already been warned about the ban on communication devices in court.

Sarawut said Khon Kaen Court officials had filed an allegation of contempt of court against the three defendants.

Jidarat has been ordered to testify next month while the other two are already in detention and can be taken to court from Khon Kaen Prison at any time.

As millions of people usually travel during the Songkran holidays, there is a greater risk of road accidents and large numbers of casualties.

The Songkran road toll is expected to be so high that the relevant agencies have resolved to declare the holiday period “Seven Dangerous Days” in order to promote road safety.

The experience of the past, however, is that adequate blood stocks will be needed to help save lives. At least one hospital already has critically low blood supplies.

Thai Red Cross Society, which operates the National Blood Centre, said this week that almost 200 hospitals had asked for blood units.

“With their requests, we will have to provide between 3,000 and 4,000 blood units per day during Songkran,” an official said.

The Red Cross said that, statistically, group O is the most in-demand blood type, followed by B, A, and AB. During the seven days of Songkran, at least about 28,000 blood units will be required in storage.

People who plan to go on vacation during this period are advised to donate blood beforehand.

Currently, the Sririraj Hospital lacks type O blood type for storage. Donors are requested to come to the third floor of the hospital from Monday-Friday between 8.30am and 6pm, and on weekends and national holidays between 8.30am and 4.40pm.

The Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital has a campaign asking people to donate blood to help patients with thalassemia, heart disease and cancer, as well as those suffering from road accidents. Its blood-donation room is open every day from 8.30am to 4pm.

The dogs at Wat Pathammaram in Lan Saka district had been vaccinated against rabies on March 7, so their deaths led to speculation among monks and residents about a causal link.

Siripong on Monday led a team of officials in spraying the temple grounds with disinfectant and treating the surviving dogs.

He explained that the dogs had died from a different disease.

If a vaccinated dog were allergic to the anti-rabies serum, it would show symptoms to that effect within 15 minutes, he said, so the deaths on March 20-21 had nothing to do with the March 7 vaccinations.

Siripong said the temple was the province’s first site of an outbreak of canine parvovirus.

Monks said three or four of the vaccinated dogs per day vomited, would only drink water and died in their sleep beginning about a week after they had their shots.

They said some of the surviving dogs were showing similar symptoms.