Phumtham confident new Cabinet will take office by Sept 15

Caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai declared confidently on Monday that the new Cabinet should take office no later than September 15 as none of the nominees have qualification issues.

He said the Cabinet list should be submitted for royal endorsement and new ministers sworn in in time for the new government to deliver its policy statement by September 15.

“Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s Cabinet should take office no later than September 15,” Phumtham added.

He said the Council of State, which is the government’s legal advisory board, has checked the qualifications of those ministers whose backgrounds appeared to be in question and has assured the Cabinet Secretariat that the nominees’ backgrounds were acceptable.

“The nominees, who were initially worried if they had issues about their ethical standards, have had their qualifications checked by both the Cabinet Secretariat and the Council of State and there are no issues,” he added.

It had been reported earlier that up to 11 nominees for the Paetongtarn Cabinet are facing probes by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

On Monday, Pheu Thai deputy leader Chusak Sirinil said NACC secretary-general Niwatchai Kasemmongkol had assured the government committee in charge of screening Cabinet members’ qualifications that none of the nominees had ethical issues.

Chusak said Niwatchai had told the working committee that the NACC has, so far, found no grounds to suspect wrongdoings by the nominees in question, so they can take office as Cabinet members.

He quoted Niwatchai as saying that anyone can file a complaint with the NACC against any politician but finding grounds to indict them is another matter.

Chusak said if politicians were blocked from taking office just because a complaint was filed with the NACC, then the country would never move forward.

He added that Meechai Ruchuphan, former charter drafting committee chairman, and Wissanu Krea-ngam, former deputy prime minister and legal expert, had jointly checked the qualifications of all Cabinet nominees and found that none of them faced any ethical issues. Both Meechai and Wissanu are on the Council of State.