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CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The appointment of Wuttipong Pongsuwan as president of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) may be scrapped if he is found to have a conflict of interest.

Wuttipong's selection was announced a few weeks ago. However, an ICT Ministry source told Database that the Sipa's board of directors are reconsidering his qualifications.

Wuttipong is a founder of a software company, called Software Park Ltd, and his wife is the major shareholder. The firm has awarded many government projects, including those of the ICT Ministry, Public Health Ministry, Commerce Ministry, Defense Ministry, and more.

Sipa, by the end of last year, had received 200 million baht under the Thailand Creative Economy initiative, part of the Thai Khemkhaeng stimulus package, to run the Digital Media Asia 2010 (DMA 2010) project to promote the software and IT human resources development to enable Thailand become a regional creative economy hub in three to five years.

Wuttipong, who at that time was the vice president of Sipa, has been in charge of this project and has appointed Thippayarat Taechayeunyong, his wife's sister, as manager of Sipa's DMA project.

The official appointment of Wuttipong as Sipa president was scheduled for last week. However, the source said the board is now reconsidering the decision and examining the qualifications of Wuttipong owing to his apparent conflict of interest.

Sipa chairman Jeerasak Pongpisnupichit said the delay of the official announcement is because Sipa's working group is now working on the KPI for the new president and the conditions to be defined in the contract signing.

However, the source pointed out that the board is also concerned about the qualifications of the new president.

Another source of the industry pointed out that if the board insists on appointing Wuttipong, it's likely to bombard the entire software industry.

Last week, the private sector, represented by five associations - the Association of Thai ICT Industry (Atci), Thai Software Export Promotion Association (Tsep), Thai Embedded Systems Association (Tesa), Thailand Animation and Computer Graphics Association (Tacga) and E-learning Association - delivered a letter to the new ICT minister, Juti Krairuk, asking to dissolve the board of Sipa and cancel the selection of the new president.

The ICT minister told Database that Sipa is a public organisation, not a state enterprise, so the minister has no authority to appoint or dismiss the board.

The ICT minister's response triggered mixed reactions - some said it was well-mannered, while some criticised it for being an example of the Democrat Party's "do nothing" style.

In addition, the reason that the board of directors did not resign is because of the many lawsuits filed by Rungruang Limchoopatipan, Sipa's former president, when he was declared by the board to discontinue his presidency duty.

If the board resigns before the cases are resolved, they cannot defended by the attorney.