Lawmaker Urges Digital Minister to Brief Panel on TH-AI Passport Deal

On July 24, 2025, at Parliament, Rachanok Srinok, a list-based member of the Pheu Thai Party and chair of the House Committee on Budget Formulation and Administration, discussed inviting agencies to brief the committee on the TH-AI Passport issue. She complained that relevant agencies rarely show up to explain, noting that a committee meeting on July 16 was convened to review the project because registration had been scheduled for July 15 but was postponed due to contract changes. The current postponement date remains unknown.

Rachanok said the committee has repeatedly requested cooperation and documents but received no response on delivery timelines. She noted that some officials even left the meeting in less than an hour. A key issue concerns Section 5 of the Terms of Reference, which mandates nationwide advertising via billboards, convenience store screens, and department stores. A Human Intelligence representative claimed this costs only 900,000 baht and is not essential, but Rachanok disagreed, arguing that specifications locked into the ToR must be met exactly.

Rachanok stated that attempting to downplay the 900,000-baht figure as insignificant was misleading. When she priced out the Section 5 specifications using Plan B's nationwide display network, she calculated the actual cost at roughly 9 million baht—far exceeding the quoted figure. This would effectively lock out competitors and allow only the display company to bid at the artificially low price.

She also raised concerns that no bidder specified which display company's screens they would use in their technical proposals, despite the ToR requiring top-five displays nationwide. Yet the Digital Economy Ministry and the scoring panel awarded points without clarifying this detail, suggesting evaluators knew the winning bidder's identity in advance. Rachanok further complained that the committee's request for both the original and amended contracts has gone unmet.