The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission has once again landed itself in controversy. This time, the NBTC selection panel has found its chairman, Dr Sarana Boonbaichaiyapruck, in breach of NBTC law and deemed him to have waived his right to serve as a commissioner.
The panel ruled last week that Dr Sarana lacks the qualifications required under Section 7(b)(12) and Section 20(4). Dr Sarana, a former executive of Ramathibodi Hospital at Mahidol University, holds an NBTC licence to operate the Rama Channel television station. NBTC rules bar anyone who has worked with a broadcasting or telecom entity within one year of selection from holding a seat on the commission.
The panel also found that Dr Sarana had breached NBTC articles 8 and 18, which prevent commissioners from working and receiving remuneration elsewhere. Investigators determined that after his appointment, Dr Sarana, one of the country's leading cardiologists with a long list of VIP patients, continued to practise at state and private hospitals.
Appointed to head the NBTC in the first quarter of 2022, Dr Sarana refuses to back down, let alone resign. He has described his consultations as voluntary work offered only to former patients, and the money he received for them as a volunteer stipend.
With his refusal to bow out, media and critics are now waiting on the NBTC board meeting next Monday. Will Dr Sarana take the chair despite the questions hanging over his status?
Will the other commissioners even attend a meeting that would, in effect, amount to an acknowledgement of the selection panel's decision? Whichever way it goes, the country and the public are the ones who suffer when telecom regulators are mired in conflict.
The findings against Dr Sarana are hardly a shock. Anyone who has followed this board, appointed by the junta-installed Senate, has grown weary of the steady run of negative coverage showing commissioners at each other's throats.
The board has been plagued by a lack of unity, characterised by a web of lawsuits involving commissioners, the chairman included. The infighting has caused significant delays in broadcasting and telecommunications policy over the past four years.
It begs the question: under an embattled chairman, how much longer can the centre hold?
It is time Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul stepped in and set a direction on how the chairman's status is to be determined. The government must also steer the board and its staff away from the catfight and back towards the work they were appointed to do.
The law allows it to do so. Section 74 of the NBTC Act gives the government the power to ensure that the regulator's management of national resources, including the radio frequency spectrum, remains consistent with cabinet policy.
The Digital Economy Act empowers the Office of the National Board of Digital Economy and Society, the state body chaired by the prime minister, to summon the NBTC and issue direct policy instructions. The mechanisms exist. What has been missing is the will to use them.
Given free rein, the regulator has proved harmful to both itself and the public interest.
Despite its standing as an independent body, the NBTC is legally bound to align its operations with state policy for the public good.
