Peeraphan Prempooti, newly appointed permanent secretary for the Prime Minister’s Office, speaks to officials on his first day at his new office yesterday.

Peeraphan said he needed to get to know the officials as quickly as possible, after his predecessor Rongphol Charoenphanthu was transferred

to replace Wissanu Krea-ngam as Cabinet secretary-general, who resigned recently.

Peeraphan, a former police major general, said he had not learned whether the Election Commission had formally endorsed the Cabinet decision appointing him to the post. "I am not following the procedure closely," he said, without mentioning that Royal endorsement is also needed to approve his appointment, despite the Cabinet decision.

Peeraphan denied that he was appointed to the post to defend iTV against a court ruling fining it Bt70 billion for violating its broadcasting contract.

"The main point is that the ruling must be in accordance with the law, and with the way the Administrative Court has ruled," he said. A meeting to discuss iTV would be held next week, he said.

When asked how confident he was that he could make iTV pay the huge fine, he replied: "I've handled many cases involving as much as Bt60 or Bt70 billion, and investigation reports with hundreds of thousands of pages with no problems."

Piyanart Srivalo

The Nation