Under-siege NBTC needs to stand aloof

What is it that’s suppressing what should be a huge public hue and cry over the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration’s plans to impose controls on the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission? The complaints should be deafening. The interim government is attempting to turn back the clock to a more restrictive time, and yet its usual critics seem content in this matter, or at least resigned.

The NBTC was established three years ago in the face of strong resistance from the politicians in power and the industry itself. No one wanted to see the changes that such a national watchdog would bring. For them it meant ceding the power to allocate telecom and broadcasting frequencies.

Subsequent governments controlled by Thaksin Shinawatra opposed the idea of setting up the NBTC for obvious reasons. In fact, despite their overwhelming majority in Parliament, they shunned every opportunity to fulfil one of the most important requirements of what had been “the People’s Constitution”. And Thaksin was, after all, a telecom tycoon. Rather than forming an ostensibly independent regulatory body, the Thaksin regime established a Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, a readily controlled entity that could handle issues affecting Thaksin’s Shin Corp in a way that suited him best. The military wasn’t happy with the NBTC concept, either. 

It held the exclusive rights to several of the broadcasting frequencies and made sure that “telecom security” was irrevocably associated in voters’ minds with national security. 

So the envisioned “liberalisation” of the telecom and broadcasting industries, ingrained in the 1997 Constitution, would clearly benefit no one in power. 

The concept became part of the charter due tocivic concerns about abuse by the powerful, and because of the noble idea that the frequencies belonged to the people as a whole.

The NBTC was established against all odds. Its major tasks – the auctions of 3G telecom licences and digital TV licences – have been carried out amid considerable controversy, since big-name players still hold sway and newcomers find it hard to make any inroads. Further controversial has festered over the commissioners’ salaries and perks. Direct and indirect payments to the commissioners are not perceived as matching their contributions. The commissioners should have done a lot better, so to speak.

Yet the idea of reining them in by re-introducing political control will defeat the very fundamental concept of the NBTC. 

Political control has proved counter-productive when liberalisation of the telecom and broadcasting business is concerned. And vested interests complicating politicians’ decisions on the future of the industry have often led to corruption. It could be blatant money-under-the-table corruption or so-called “policy corruption”, a term that features in the ongoing political crisis of Thailand.

Problems plaguing the 3G and digital TV auctions showed that our NBTC requires much improvement. But, also, they remind us how politically problematical the telecom and broadcasting industries still are, and how the problems can accumulate if politicians are, again, allowed even a slice of the cake.

There are ways to handle the NBTC problems without chipping away at its independence. Rules and regulations could be introduced limiting salaries and addressing other concerns. 

Checks and balances could be tightened without the slightest need for politicians intruding on the commission’s work. 

Thailand would be better off with a more accountable NBTC, and worse off with a less independent one.