NLA whip says leaked audio is fake

CLIP CUT ‘FROM SEVERAL CONVERSATIONS’

>> The National Legislative Assembly (NLA)’s whip has insisted the leaked audio clip indicating the prime minister was not happy with the list of telecom regulator candidates was doctored.

Critics have jumped on the clip as evidence of the NCPO seeking to influence the NLA’s decision to shoot down the list of candidates.

“I insist the conversation [in the clip] definitely did not come from any whip meetings,” said Somchai Swangkarn, secretary of the NLA whips, yesterday.

He said he was present at all of the meetings and there had been no such discussion. It was also unlikely to have come from the NLA’s screening committee either since he had attended those meetings as well.

“I’m confident that the clip was doctored by using the voices of people from several meetings,” he said.

Mr Somchai, however, said he couldn’t confirm whether the voice was that of an NLA member.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Friday denied that he had sent a message to the NLA expressing his dissatisfaction over the composition of the list of candidates for the board of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) as suggested by the leaked audio.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday called on the NLA to explain its reasons for the unusual decision clearly to the public.

Mr Abhisit said he was surprised to learn that the NLA had not discussed the matter with the committee tasked with screening the candidates ahead of its decision to shoot down the list.

“Both sides now owe the public a clear explanation regarding the problems surrounding the selection of the new NBTC board,” he said.

This is not the first instance of such behaviour, with the NLA having already been criticised for voting to reject all seven candidates chosen to be election commissioners on Feb 22, he added.

The NLA claimed earlier that the rejection came after at least eight of the 14 final candidates were deemed to be ineligible.

Still, Mr Somchai said the NLA could not totally blame the screening committee which proposed the list for the mistake because the committee had apparently tried its best to remove a number of ineligible candidates before it produced its 14-person shortlist.

To be fair, he said, the committee was given only 30 days to scrutinise the candidates’ qualifications.

Once the NLA whips became aware of the eight ineligible candidates picked by the screening committee, they realised it would be unlawful for the NLA panel to proceed and pick less than the stipulated seven candidates for the NBTC’s seven board members, Mr Somchai said.

The eight candidates are ineligible because they used to either hold shares in, serve as executives of, or be employed at a broadcast or telecommunication business one year prior to the selection process, he said.

That is what led to the NLA’s resolution, reached last Thursday, to refrain from voting to select the seven NBTC board members, he said.

As for who actually released the controversial audio clip, Mr Somchai said he was confident the clip wasn’t intentionally released by anyone affiliated with the NLA, as speculated, to demonstrate their disagreement with the decision, which was reached by means of a vote.

NLA president Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, meanwhile, said he will tomorrow sign an order to form a fact-finding committee to investigate the emergence of the audio clip.

The committee will attempt to find out both whether the clip is authentic and who, or which organisation, is behind its release, Mr Pornpetch said.

It will also probe a media report concerning the NLA’s separate vote to reject the Ombudsman candidate. The report said the selection committee chaired by the Supreme Court president was not careful enough in its task to screen the candidate, resulting in the rejection.

The probe should take about 30 days to complete, he said.

Either the NLA or the media risk being found guilty of violating both their ethical code and laws such as the Computer Crime Act, he said.

This committee will be tasked with finding out the truth and if the truth points to anyone suspected to have committed a misconduct or a crime, another committee will be set up to consider what type of action should be pursued, Mr Pornpetch said.

NLA vice-president Surachai Liangboonlertchai also insisted the audio file was not recorded at a whips’ meeting as he had been present at all meetings and the conversation was not part of proceedings.

The decision of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on Thursday to reject the final list of 14 proposed candidates put forward as prospective National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) board members has raised several questions. This is not the first time the NLA, as an ad hoc lawmaker in parliament, has voted against lists of candidates proposed for independent organisations. On the same day it rejected the NBTC candidates, the NLA also turned down a list containing one candidate proposed for the role of national Ombudsman.

Earlier in February, the coup-installed assembly shot down a list of seven candidates proposed for selection as new Election Commission members. As with the rejection of the NBTC list, it claimed the EC candidates were unqualified for the job.

Such justification was made despite the fact that those candidates were recruited by selection committees which mainly consist of legal experts and senior judges.

For the selection of the NBTC’s new commissioners, the committee is chaired by a senior Supreme Administrative Court judge. Other members of the panel are the Ombudsman, a senior Supreme Court judge, a commissioner of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, a commissioner of the State Audit Commission, the Bank of Thailand governor and the vice president of the Supreme Administrative Court.

This high-profile selection committee scrutinised 86 applicants for the NBTC job and selected 14 to propose to the NLA who was supposed to pick seven candidates from the list. The NLA claimed that that eight of the candidates were unqualified which therefore left it unable to produce a shortlist of seven.

If the claim is true, it is tantamount to the NLA blaming the highly-credentialled experts in the selection committee for their carelessness in proposing a list in which more than half of the candidates were “unqualified”.

But an audio clip that leaked to the media following the NLA’s vote may tell another side of the story. The file is alleged to be a recording of a conversation among some members of the NLA whip.

The dialogue claimed that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was unhappy with the list as several candidates are from the old clique in the NBTC and some of them have connections with political camps.

The audio clip claimed that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was unhappy with the list as several candidates have connections with political camps.

Although Gen Prayut denied the allegation, insisting he had never intervened in the NLA’s deliberation, the issue has inevitably raised scepticism as to whether the NLA’s decision was politically motivated.

It would be unacceptable if the NLA decided to reject the entire list of candidates based on a political order. The NBTC is one of the most important organisations. As the telecoms and broadcasting regulator, it oversees matters concerning national interests worth hundreds of billions of baht. The agency has to balance the interests of the private sector, consumers and the state in a fair manner.

It is an organisation that needs to demonstrate high integrity and maintain the public’s trust. There are several serious tasks waiting ahead for its new commissioners.

The NBTC is to consider draft terms of reference for the 1800- and 850-megahertz auctions as the concession of that spectrum range, now operated by Total Access Communication (DTAC), will expire on Sept 15.

The new NBTC board will also have to make an all-out effort to convince Advance Info Services and True Corp to participate in the auctions. The two companies asked the government to invoke Section 44 to extend the terms of their licence payments for the 900MHz licences, but they have so far only received a lukewarm response.

The new board members of the NBTC must not only bring expertise to their roles, but they must also have impeccable ethical standards.

As a result, it’s right that the candidates for the new board have to be highly scrutinised by both the selection committee and the NLA.

But the process must be ethical and transparent to ensure that the new NBTC board members will not come into office under the patronage of any interest groups, whether it is the old clique or the current regime.

The NLA may have deeper information on the candidates than that of the selection committee. The NLA should clearly explain its reasons behind the decision to reject the list. For the sake of transparency and fairness for all candidates and the selection committee, the assembly should disclose the names of the eight persons it considered unqualified and its rationale for turning down the list.

If the government insists it did not interfere in the NLA’s vote, then it has to locate the person whose voice in the audio file claimed the prime minister was unhappy with the list and punish him for making a false statement. Otherwise, the public will not be convinced that the government had no hand in it.