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Published on August 25, 2007

TOT Plc's board chairman General Saprang Kalaya-namitr said yesterday he would not resign under pressure from the state agency's labour union and that only his bosses could remove him from the board.

"The only people who can remove me are my commanders. They are the prime minister [Surayud Chulanont] and chairman of the Council for National Security [General Sonthi Boonyaratglin]. I will not resign because of the pressure of mob rule," he added.

He said those who were pressuring him would soon lose out.

On Thursday the labour union wrote to the ICT ministry to ask it to change the TOT board, citing the board's management inexperience, which it said had prompted internal conflict between senior directors and the management, and the TOT's huge drop in net profits.

Information and Communi-cations Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiya-udom said yesterday he would report to Surayud next week on the situation at the TOT.

Sitthichai strongly denied that his meeting with to the premier was in response to the TOT labour union's request to the ICT Ministry to change the TOT board. He said he had already discussed with the Finance Ministry, which owns 100 per cent of TOT, how to deal with the problem but said there had been no conclusion yet.

"I believe the TOT chairman can handle the case," he said.

Saprang added that he had no plans to remove any board directors to solve the internal conflicts as suggested by the board's advisor, Admiral Ban-navit Kengrien.

There is a report that the labour union is divided between those who support the board and those who oppose it.

Meanwhile, the board has given TOT president Somkual Buraminhentr 15 days to clarify the abnormally low fine TOT imposed on Alcatel-Lucent for failure to deliver the transmission-network expansion project on time. TOT's management imposed a fine of Bt52 million on the company, lower than the actual amount of Bt177 million.

The board will also start the process of electing a new TOT president as soon as Somkual's term ends on December 20.

Next week the TOT board will consider appointing Bannavit as chairman of Thai Mobile and ACT Mobile, the cellular-operator and network-provider join ventures respectively between TOT and CAT.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation