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Crisis at FTI worsens

Achara Pongvutitham,

Tinnakorn Chaowachuen

The Nation

Three of Kingdom's top businessmen back Payungsak; 'unofficial' chairman Santi vows to rally SME support

BANGKOK: -- The worst conflict in the Federation of Thai Industries' 45-year history is dragging on, despite Santi Vilassakdanont's resignation as the FTI's "other chairman".

His supporters still want to oust board members from the opposing camp, loyal to official chairman Payungsak Chartsutipol. They will hold a special meeting on Tuesday to find a new way to fire the board members from the rival group at the monthly meeting to be held on December 24.

At the previous meeting on November 26, Santi was unofficially appointed new FTI chairman. But he resigned on Thursday, possibly under pressure from the company that he represents in the industrial organisation.

Tanit Sorat, secretary-general of the FTI under Santi's leadership, said the meeting would involve chairmen of regional FTI chapters and the federation's provincial chairmen, who represent small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs account for 70 per cent of the FTI's total membership.

"We [santi's supporters] will urge Payungsak to resign from the chairman position to resolve FTI's internal conflict by ourselves, instead of paving the way for political intervention," Tanit said.

The strategy was unveiled in response to a press conference hastily convened by Payungsak and 30 of his supporters yesterday. He announced that he had received the direct support of Dhanin Chearavanont, chairman of Charoen Pokphand Group, Boonsithi Chokwatana, chairman of Saha Group, and Pailin Chuchottaworn, president and chief executive officer of PTT, three of the Kingdom's most influential businessmen.

Boonsithi told the FTI in writing that the Saha Group backed Payungsak, distancing it from Santi, who is president of its subsidiary Saha Pathana Inter-Holding.

In his letter to Payungsak, dated November 27 but made public yesterday, Boonsithi said that as an FTI member, Saha continued its support for Payungsak. Boonsithi said in his letter that Santi and Sommat Khunset, the FTI secretary-general, were not acting on the group's behalf in the conflict over the FTI chairmanship.

Dhanin said to Payungsak and five FTI vice chairmen during their visit to the True building on Thursday that he was not happy about the conflict at the FTI, as it is an important private-sector organisation. However, Dhanin said he fully supported Payungsak to retain the helm of the federation, said Vallop Vitanakorn, vice chairman of the FTI.

Payungsak said he and existing board members including Tanit and Sommat - despite the fact that both support Santi - would continue to manage the FTI as normal, emphasising that they were legally elected under the FTI's regulations. In addition, the team would continue to work with government agencies and private organisations to alleviate the effects of the nationwide implementation of the Bt300 daily minimum wage early next year.

Payungsak, however, said the FTI would have to wait for the outcome of its monthly meeting on December 24. The meeting would be cancelled if he foresaw any serious problems, he said.

Payungsak has had to appoint others to do the work of Sommat, who has stopped performing his duties as secretary-general of the FTI.

"We have to modernise the FTI's rules and regulations, as they have been in place for a long time. We may study the model of Keidanren," the Japanese Business Federation.

Vallop said the existing FTI board members did not want to prolong this problem, and wanted to get to work on the federation's urgent problems to assist all members. The FTI will call a board meeting on December 18 to sound out ways to resolve the issue and resume cooperation within the organisation.

"We don't want to talk about the resignation of the chairman any more, as Payungsak was legally elected. We are open to talking to the opposition side to solve the internal conflict," Vallop said.

FTI members in some provinces such as Pathum Thani, Songkhla and Surat Thani have continued to support Payungsak.

However, Witoon Simachockdee, permanent secretary of the Industry Ministry, said yesterday that the ministry would try to reach a final decision on the conflict. The ministry will focus on the minister's right to decide whether to accept the result of the November 26 election of Santi.

-- The Nation 2012-12-08

[Rancid]

Small business and big corporations generally don't have the same agendas, Big, inefficient, old money business is often protected by government monopolies either officially or by stealth, wheras small business actually have to be competitive. The monopolies are important as these businesses usually couldn't actually cope with competition as they need to maintain the old systems and fill mangement positions with useless university dropouts of friends and cronies.

In fact the west is little different but for different reasons, as governmnets pile on useless extra rules, regulations and accounting it is only big business that can afford the staff to process it. And of course it is big business that offers retiring politicians and public servants those juicy board positions for services rendered. Small business cannot compete in the corruption stakes.