Ombudsman wants state to take back PTT pipelines
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THAILAND'S Office of the Ombudsman has renewed its call for the government to take back offshore natural gas pipelines worth an estimated Bt68 billion from PTT Plc,which it said were illegally possessed by the partly state-owned energy firm.
The problematic ownership issue, involving hundreds of kilometres of offshore pipelines used to transport natural gas from production fields in the Gulf of Thailand, started when PTT – former state enterprise called Petroleum Authority of Thailand – became a public company and its shares listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand 14 years ago.
Sriracha Wongsarayangkun, chairman of the Office of Ombudsman, said the state was supposed to remove the gas pipelines from PTT’s assets before it got listed but it failed to do so.
According to its comprehensive four-point report submitted to the government on April 28, the Office of Ombudsman suggested that the Finance and Energy ministries had apparently “joined hands” with PTT to provide false evidence to the Supreme Administrative Court, which earlier ruled the possession was not illegal.
Legally speaking, Sriracha said the first point was that the Finance and Energy ministries had failed to enforce a Cabinet resolution regarding the separation of state and corporate assets before PTT shares started to be traded.
He said it was therefore invalid for PTT to claim that it had exhausted all legal means on this issue when “false” evidence was allegedly used by the Supreme Administrative Court to rule the pipeline possession was not |illegal.
He said the report stated that PTT had failed to abide by the Civil and Commercial Code after failing to transfer the ownership of the pipelines on September 30, 2001 back to the state, when PTT was converted from a state enterprise into a corporation for the listing on the stock market.
The Finance and Energy ministries also failed to carry out their legal duties in taking back the state assets after PTT became a listed company.
Sriracha said the full report – submitted to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, chairman of National Council for Peace and Order and ACM Prajin Juntong, deputy chairman of the NCPO and the head of economic affairs – suggested that the government should address the issue so it complied with the Cabinet resolution on asset separation.
Also, he said PTT was asked to return the pipelines and compensation the state with interest based on the benefits it received from using the pipelines.
