"I heard that the board will pressure me to resign, but I will not bow to it. If it wants to sack me, it has to give me a good explanation," Teerawit said.

He plans to meet employees today to ask them to support him if the board tries to remove him.

The board reportedly plans to sack him this month for performing poorly. Teerawit took the position in January 2005 after leaving his post as chief finance officer at MCOT. He is the first TOT president who was not previously a senior official at the organisation. He reportedly has close ties with Shin Corp chief executive Boonklee Plangsiri.

The head of the TOT's union Nukul Bawornsirinukul said employees would back Teerawit.

"If the board wants to sack him, all its members should be sacked as well because they've been in their posts for three

years and eight months without any outstanding achievements," Nukul said.

A TOT source said the board wanted to remove Teerawit for failing to boost TOT's revenue and steer the state agency to the Stock Exchange of Thailand as planned.

TOT recently lost an arbitration court battle over network access charges to its private telecom concessionaire True Corp.

The source added that Teerawit had clashed with members of the board, including chairman Sathit Limpongpan. They believed he showed them insufficient respect, the source said.

The board plans to appoint TOT senior executive vice president Peerapan Soonthornsaratoon as the acting president after it sacks Teerawit, the source added.

TOT posted revenue of Bt60.293 billion last year and its net profit was Bt6.682 billion. In 2004, it made a net profit of Bt11.522 billion on revenues of Bt62.16 billion.

Teerawit said recently that TOT had to indefinitely postpone its listing schedule from the second quarter this year, due mainly to unsettled court disputes with private telecom concessionaires.

A TOT panel assigned to evaluate the Teerawit's performance gave him 74 points in its latest evaluation process.

Teerawit's contract requires him to score more than 70 points on his performance evaluations, which are conducted every six months.

The TOT source said that during the board's lengthy examination of Teerawit scores last Friday, some members said he should have scored only 68 points.

After a board meeting, Sathit declined to say if members had already decided to remove Teerawit.

He said he would discuss TOT's business outlook with employees today.

Teerawit has initiated several projects for TOT, although they have yet to come to fruition. He is also attempting to strengthen ties with major foreign telecom operators to improve the state agency's competitiveness.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation