Kittiratt: Rice pledging scheme will be under-budget
Deputy Prime Minister for economic affairs Kittiratt Na-Ranong is confident that the government’s rice scheme will boost local rice prices and that the cost of the rice price pledging plan will be lower than expected, but a poll of economists concludes that corruption is inevitable.
Deputy Prime Minister for economic affairs and Commerce Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong (Photo by Kosol Nakachol)
He predicted on Wednesday that the government's rice mortgage scheme would boost rice prices and as a result less than 15 million tonnes of paddy would have to be mortgaged by farmers.
"Therefore, the cost of the rice price pledging programme will be less than the previously estimated 400 billion baht," Commerce Minister Kittiratt said.
Deputy government spokeswoman Anuttama Amorwiwat said the cabinet meeting yesterday approved a plan for the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives to allocate a budget of 3.82 billion baht to the Marketing Organisation for Farmers for funding the rice mortgage scheme until it gets additional budget funding in the 2012 fiscal year.
It is expected that the marketing agency would be able to absorb about 10 million tonnes of mortgaged paddy from the 2011/12 harvest before the 2012 fiscal budget funding kicks in, she added.
The cabinet also approved the signing of amended memorandums of understanding on government to government rice sales between Thailand and Indonesia and between Thailand and Bangladesh.
Under these deals, the Thai government agrees to sell a maximum of one million tonnes of 15 to 25 per cent white rice to Indonesia and Bangladesh annually, depending on the rice output in each country and the rice prices on the world market, said Ms Anuttama.
The MoU between Thailand and Indonesia will be effective from 2012 to 2016, while the memorandum with Bangladesh is effective from 2011 to 2016. These agreements guarantee that Thailand will certainly have rice export markets in the long-term, she said.
Deputy Commerce Minister Phum Saraphol said a total of 667 rice millers had agreed to join the rice mortgage programme. He confirmed that the pilot rice pledging scheme will start on Friday, Oct 7, in 31 provinces.
Meanwhile, the opposition Democrat Party has opened a centre to hear any complaints about the government paddy pledging programme, which is set to start on Wednesday, Oct 7.
Shadow deputy commerce minister Warong Detkijwikrom said, a Democrat MP for Phitsanulok, said this was decided at today's meeting of the Democrat Party's shadow cabinet chaired by party leader and former premier Abhisit Vejjajiva.
He said the meeting expressed concern the paddy pledging programme would be plagued with corruption and the people would not benefit from it.
The meeting agreed to set up a centre where people with grievances could file complaints.
Mr Warong said the centre is chaired by Apirak Kosayodhin, the shadow commerce minister, and he is deputy chairman.
People can file complaints with the centre seven days a week via hotline 02-2700036 from 8am to 6pm.
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