The estimated loss incurred by ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra's rice-pledging scheme has increased by 19 billion baht from a previous estimate of 518 billion.
Finance permanent secretary Rungson Sriworasat yesterday said the latest estimate was updated to the end of fiscal 2014 from just last May 22 in the earlier estimate.
The higher estimated loss has raised the total losses from buying 84 million tonnes of paddy in the 15 schemes from 2004-14 to almost 700 billion baht, with the Yingluck government alone accounting for 537 billion, he said.
The figure is crucial, as it will be used in lodging a civil suit, demanding compensation from Ms Yingluck for negligence in her government's rice scheme.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has submitted a letter to the Finance Ministry requesting it seek compensation from those causing financial losses to the state after it filed a lawsuit with the Office of the Attorney-General accusing Ms Yingluck of dereliction of duty for failing to stop losses and corruption in the rice-subsidy scheme.
Apart from Ms Yingluck, the NACC earlier advised the ministry to proceed with a civil lawsuit against a number of individuals and companies involved in allegedly corrupt government-to-government rice deals. They include former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom, his deputy Poom Sarapol, plus 19 other high-level officials, private sector executives and two companies.
Mr Rungson, who also chairs the subcommittee overseeing accounting of all rice subsidy schemes, said the latest estimate had taken findings from a recent inspection by a team working for PM's Office Minister ML Panadda Diskul into account.
Of the 17.6 million tonnes of milled rice bought under the previous government's scheme, the inspection deemed only 2.19 million tonnes of standard quality and classified as Grade A. Some 14.4 million tonnes were judged substandard or Grade B and the rest classified as Grade C because it was either rotten or registered incorrectly.