At a dinner function last week, a senior public relations executive for former prime minister Anand Panyarachun's National Reform Committee, had a brief chat with this writer.

In the chat, three interesting details came up. The female executive voiced concerns about the media's repeated "mistake" of calling the committee "government-appointed". She also wondered why Matichon newspaper, known to be sympathetic to the red shirts, did not portray the committee in a positive light like other papers did.

Then she insisted that the committee was altruistic - working for nothing but the good of the country. "You know Khun Anand, right?" she said.

While there is no denying that an impressive number of well-known scholars have come together to form Anand's 19-member committee, it is also clear that this panel, along with three others, only came into being after the April-May red-shirt protest was brought to a bloody end.

The fact that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva - who presided over the crackdown that killed more than 90 people - has handpicked all of the panel's chairpersons, including Anand, makes it undeniably controversial and casts doubts over the independence of the committees as well as their raison d'etre.

Perhaps, this abnormal circumstance helped explain why the PR executive was so touchy.

Besides, there are many people who will likely never support Anand's committee and will do everything to undermine it because of how it came into being. Editor of Red Power magazine, Somyos Prueksakasemsuk, recently wrote an article denouncing these committees, saying it was a continuation of the elites' hand in shaping the country so the elite strata of the society could continue ruling unchecked - the true mission behind the 2006 coup.

Given the circumstances, Anand and his committee would do well to face the challenge of their abnormal circumstances.

Firstly, they should recognise that there has never been a consensus in society supporting this national reform committee. In fact, the red shirts are trying to create their own reform committee in an attempt to undermine the one led by Anand and others appointed by Abhisit.

Secondly, the committee should realise that not all groups share the idea of society's ills and that there is one sensitive political issue that is extremely relevant to the future of Thailand, but it cannot be discussed openly due to the lese majeste law.

Thirdly, the committee was created in the aftermath of death and turmoil, and is functioning while the Kingdom is still in a state of political conflict though a veneer of normalcy is maintained through the use of emergency decree, which Anand very rightly opposes. That's when the question of the accountability of a committee, which uses the taxpayers' money comes up.

To keep people believing in the committee's altruism, it would have to continue proving itself to be more inclusive, transparent, accountable, less hierarchical and understanding.

The fact that the Anand was first appointed by the PM, and then proceeded to hand-pick the rest of his team, it is undeniably a classic top-down approach and not reform-inspiring.

The committee said it would take three years to complete its action plan, but there's no telling if the government at that time would even accept the committee's legitimacy. Millions of red shirts are opposing the committees as it is.

Failing to win over sceptics, the committees have ended up being a bunch of mostly unaccountable members of the elite, whose chiefs were appointed by a controversial PM seeking to buy time in the aftermath of bloodshed, while the country continues to be refashioned in a top-down fashion to their "altruistic" whims. Now all they need is the stamp of unreserved public approval.

This is hardly inspiring PR material.