He succeeds Piyasvasti Amranand, whose employment contract was abruptly terminated by the THAI Board of Directors in May.
THAI chairman Ampon Kitti-ampon said Mr Sorajak was the only candidate qualified by the selection panel.
Dr Sorajak will not be moving immediately. Mr Ampon said that once Dr Sorajak is informed of the board’s decision, negotiations over salary and benefits will begin with officials from the Ministry of Finance, which is the majority shareholder in both MCOT and THAI.
In addition, the Transport Ministry must be informed, and the decision forwarded to the Thai Cabinet for approval. Only then will Dr Sorajak become THAI’s 16th president.
Dr Sorajak has a PhD in international law from the London School of Economics, on the back of which he joined the Foreign Ministry, remaining in government circles since then.
He was president of MCOT in 1999 but resigned before his four-year term expired. He returned to MCOT in December last year as chairman of the board.
In between, he had served as vice minister to Foreign Minister Surakiat Sathirathai under the Thaksin government.
When he does take his seat at THAI, one of his first jobs may be dealing with labour relations. On the same day as his Thai appointment was released, some 100 THAI employees, led by labour union leader Jaemsri Sukchoterat, rallied at the lobby of THAI headquarters to demand a change in the employment contracts of temporary workers.
Temporary staff of THAI are hired on a two-year, four-year or five-year basis. They called on the management to review workers’ employment contracts to entitle them to work with THAI until the compulsory retirement age of 60 – and not on short term contracts.
If their demand is not met, the demonstrators said, they would lodge a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour, and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Ms Jaemsri said more than 2,500 Thai workers are employed on a contract basis when – given their special skills – they should be employed on a full-time basis.
The jobs they do, she said, are the jobs that need experienced people, and not short-term employees.
