• 
• 

Published on December 22, 2007

Energy permanent secretary Pornchai Rujiprapha yesterday tendered his resignation as chairman of PTT, effective this past Tuesday, out of fear of possibly violating state-enterprise regulations.

A law setting out minimum criteria for state-enterprise directors and staff was approved by the National Legislative Assembly on Monday.

It stipulates that the director of a state enterprise may not be a director or executive of any organisation that wins concessions from, forms a joint venture with or has any other interest in that state enterprise, unless the director has been assigned by the state enterprise.

Pornchai is chairman of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat), one of PTT's major natural-gas buyers.

"I chose to leave PTT because there are many things to do at Egat, such as negotiating power purchases from foreign countries, which requires cooperation at the policy level.

"As PTT chairman, I could not be involved with the company's transfer of assets to the government, because I'm the energy permanent secretary.

I therefore should resign, in order to help the Energy Ministry ensure that the asset transfer is in line with the recent court ruling," Pornchai said.

He had earlier insisted there was no conflict of interest in serving as both energy permanent secretary and PTT chairman, saying it was necessary for someone in the national energy organisation to supervise its activities that affected the entire public.

The Supreme Administrative Court on December 14 ordered PTT to return three natural-gas pipelines and related rights worth Bt15 billion to the Finance Ministry.

The Finance Ministry next month will come up with the final figure on the rental fee PTT must pay for using the pipelines.

Out of concern that the rate could be too high, PTT's share price has suffered a combined drop of Bt28, or 10 per cent, from Bt368 before the court ruling.

PTT stock however gained Bt16 in yesterday's tradding.

Yesterday, PTT's board was notified of and gave approval to the company's asset-transfer plan.

The assets must be transferred before the establishment of the Energy Business Supervision Committee, presumably in mid-April.

Energy Policy and Planning Office director-general Viraphol Jirapraditkul said his agency was now accepting applications from members of non-governmental organisations who want to represent their NGO on the new committee.

He hopes the committee can be formed next month, with a list of proposed members ready for Cabinet consideration in February.

The committee members will each be entitled to a monthly stipend of about Bt180,000.

The Nation