Order revised to end SAC confusion

A National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) order will be rewritten to end any confusion over when a new batch of State Audit Commission (SAC) members will be selected and who is eligible to apply, according to Constitution Drafting Committee chairman Meechai Ruchupan.

Mr Meechai said yesterday the next SAC recruits must be selected within 180 days of when the current batch’s tenure expires on Sept 25.

But he said the process could begin before their term ends, dismissing AuditorGeneral Pisit Leelavachiropas’s insistence that the 180-day selection period can only begin at the end of September.

Mr Meechai said Mr Pisit had misunderstood the timing because the order issued by the NCPO governing the SAC member selection was unclear.

The head of the charter drafter said the order may contain wording which was open to interpretation, or that certain details were missing.

“We’ll need to amend the order so that the selection process can begin,” he said.

The dispute over when the selection can take place led to the adjournment of a meeting to establish the selection committee assigned to pick SAC members.

Mr Meechai said the new members must be chosen before the term of the outgoing batch expires to ensure there is no interruption of the workflow.

He said no one from the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) should join the selection committee to avoid a conflict of interest.

The panelists should be represented by people from independent agencies, he said.

Mr Meechai said the law intends for members of independent agencies to hold office for one term only.

“I have no idea where the OAG got the impression that the current SAC members can stay on for another term,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said only one independent agency, the Ombudsman, has sent its representative to the selection committee.

He said criteria for people wanting to be panelists were set rather high to prevent them from having a vested interest in the selection.