'Super-board' takes NBTC to task over lack of support

The super-board held a press conference to update the media on its framework plan to evaluate the NBTC for six months, after submitting its letter of complaint to the Senate in the morning.
“The NBTC board is acting [in effect] against [the performance of] our duties by not allowing a suitable budget or providing information. Without the budget, we are [still] trying to handle our work plan to submit the evaluation plan to the Senate by year-end,” said General Tawatchai Samusakorn, chairman of the super-board.
The super-board is an inspectorate whose role is to evaluate the NBTC’s operations. The NBTC is an independent telecom and broadcasting regulator involved with huge investment in telecom and broadcasting projects, including 3G and 4G licensing and digital-TV channels.
The super-board was appointed by the Senate in April and finalised its working regulations in August, but it is still not functioning properly as it has to wait for the NBTC to approve its operating budget.
Earlier, the new body received Bt37 million from the NBTC to engage project advisers, and it has only recently been given Bt5 million of the Bt14-million budget requested for human resources.
The Frequency Allocation Act indicates that NBTC board has to allocate a suitable budget to the super-board, but the five members currently have only three staff and 50 square metres of temporary office space in which to work as they are still awaiting budgetary approval from the regulator’s board.
Instead of granting one-time annual funding to the new body to support its work, the NBTC has told the super-board to request funds on project-by-project basis.
This makes the super-board feel that it is being scrutinised by the NBTC, when in fact it has to be the other way round, Tawatchai said.
“It seems as if we are being evaluated by the NBTC instead,” he added.
Moreover, he said the NBTC also had not provided documents requested by the super-board, including those related to the interim-measure plan for the 1,800MHz spectrum, the Bt20-billion project for universal obligation services, and its procurement budget.
Super-board member Prasert Apipunya said the body had the legal authority to call upon the NBTC to clarify any projects subject to criticism, but the regulator had thus far ignored all such requests.
This could affect is plan to report the NBTC’s evaluation to the Senate on time, he told the press conference.
Besides Tawatchai as its chairman and Prasert, who is a former deputy secretary-general of the NBTC, the other three members of the super-board are General Bunyavat Kruahongs, a former director-general of the Defence Budget Office at the Defence Ministry; former senator Pichai Uttamapinant; and Amorntep Jirattiticharoen, who was a lecturer at Mahanakorn University of Technology.
Each of the five members has a three-year working period.
The power of the super-board’s evaluation committee lies in Article 22 of the Frequency Allocation Act.
While it has no authority to dissolve the 11-member NBTC directly, its evaluation of the commission would be used by the Senate if the latter considered removing it.
Article 22 states that a vote by at least two-thirds of senators is needed to dissolve the NBTC. In considering such a dissolution, the Senate is obliged to consider the reports of the evaluation committee.