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Published on September 17, 2007

The procurement project is designed to be carried out without bidding.

The TOT board has recently insisted that requests from the intelligence unit are a thing of the past, but its documents suggest that it has actually signed on to a project to procure equipment for a nationwide broadband network.

The saga began when the army's intelligence unit wrote to TOT on June 4 to ask for support for an electronic intelligence system it was to deploy in its national-security mission in the South.

The TOT board chaired by General Saprang Kalayanamitr convened on June 15 to look into the request. During the meeting Vuthiphong Priebjrivat, who was acting president at that time, said the financially weak TOT should not give the support. One board director, Veerapol Panbut, asked in the meeting if the TOT regulations permitted such support, while another director, Somkual Buraminhentr, said it could be done with the blessing of the board.

The meeting concluded that in principle TOT should support the security mission and instructed the company management to study the possibilities.

After the meeting Vuthipong told the press about the request and resigned a few days later. Then the other directors admitted that there had been a request for support but insisted that TOT had yet to give its approval.

TOT subsequently appointed a committee to study the possibility of providing the support, which convened on July 13. Only on July 18 did TOT management put before the board the topic of support for channels for the transmission and reception of information relating to the national security mission in the South.

According to the document, such channels could be made available through an existing TOT project by hiring a company to install a broadband network, and the project should be done by "special" means, avoiding a bidding process.

According to the document presented by the management at the board meeting on July 20 on an electronic intelligence system for the South, TOT thought support might be given through the existing nationwide broadband network.

Later TOT appointed one committee to oversee the procurement of broadband equipment by special means and another committee to examine the complete project.

On September 8, TOT's board approved a decision to procure broadband equipment worth Bt976 million by special means. TOT picked Chinese telecom vendor ZTE to supply the network and is bargaining down the price.

On Thursday TOT board director Djitt Laowattana denied that there was any irregularity in the broadband project, explaining that TOT had to speed up broadband development to boost its revenue.