Premchai’s ITD position on the line amid fallout from poaching charge
Construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta is considering stepping down as president of Italian-Thai Development (ITD) after being subjected to intense pressure that followed him being accused of illegal hunting, a source from the firm said on Sunday.
Premchai, 63, and three others have been charged with poaching after being arrested at the World Heritage Thung Yai Naresuan Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi province last week. Guns and ammunition as well as the carcasses of protected wild animals, including endangered black leopard, were found near their campsite.
The source said that Premchai’s family as well as the firm’s executives were concerned about the reaction to the episode and feared that it would have a negative impact on the company.
His family is said to have seriously considered the issue and sought the best solution both for Premchai and ITD.
They thought the only way to quell the public pressure was for Premchai to resign as ITD president in order to show that this was a personal matter and distance the company from his wrongdoing, the source added.
Since his arrest the public spotlight has been relentless both on Premchai and ITD, one of the country’s biggest construction firms and responsible for operating mega construction projects in Thailand and the Asean region.
Social media users have lobbied for a widespread boycott of ITD but the government said it was too early for them to consider blacklisting ITD from acquiring state contracts and that the issue was a personal matter.
The Thai Institute of Directors Association (IOD), a non-profit organization designed to improve directors’ professionalism and corporate governance in Thailand, has warned that the poaching allegations against Premchai could affect ITD’s scoring of corporate governance for the listed company in this year’s survey.
According to a 2017 IOD survey, Italian-Thai scored very high in corporate governance with a four-star rating.
ITD is the builder of many well-known infrastructure projects, including Suvarnabhumi Airport, the BTS Skytrain system, and multiple expressway and highway projects across the country.
In 2017 alone, ITD won several mega-infrastructure projects worth a combined Bt130 billion, including the Bt35-billion Mae Moh power plant project.