A senior official of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) has said the previous Yingluck Shinawatra government had no clear plan on when the rice stocks under the scheme would be sold.
BAAC executive vice president Supat Eauchai was testifying yesterday against Ms Yingluck who is standing trial in the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office-Holders for alleged dereliction of duty in the rice-pledging scheme, which allegedly caused more than 500 billion baht in losses to the state.
Mr Supat was one of the two prosecution witnesses who testified at the eighth hearing yesterday.
There was no clear indication under the previous administration as to when the rice grains, stored in warehouses after being bought from farmers, would be sold, he said.
In contrast, the current government has set a time frame to complete the release of the rice stocks.
According to Mr Supat, the bank transferred 878 billion baht directly to the bank accounts of farmers who had pledged their rice to the government for five rice growing seasons.
The BAAC's fund disbursements had been carried out in line with regulations and the relevant cabinet resolution. No money had been transferred to other parties except to the farmers, he insisted.
The revolving budget for the programme was capped at 500 billion baht, with complete respect for fiscal discipline, he said. About 410 billion baht of the budget came from the government and the rest came from BAAC coffers. Money from the sale of the pledged rice was used to repay debts and further fund the programme, he said.
Since May 22, 2014, when the coup took place, more than 300 billion baht has been borrowed to finance the programme.
Ms Yingluck was greeted by a crowd of supporters when she turned up at the court amid tight security yesterday.
Prosecutors still have two witnesses due to testify next Wednesday. The hearings of Ms Yingluck's witnesses will start on July 8 and end on Feb 3 next year.
Meanwhile, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) will investigate another 33 suspects in the second lot of the Yingluck administration's government-to-government (G-to-G) rice sales scheme.
These include private firms and individuals involved in signing the allegedly fraudulent sales agreements as well as companies and individuals claiming they were mandated by the Chinese government to buy the pledged rice from Thailand.
The NACC earlier found four companies that were reportedly acting on behalf of Chinese authorities in fact never received official mandates to purchase the rice stocks.
Forty-six cashier cheques, totalling about 1.9 billion baht under the names of Chinese companies to purchase Thai rice, were in fact issued by Thai individuals and firms, including Siam Indica, also involved in the first G-to-G lot scandal.
Earlier this month, finance officials told the Commerce Ministry to demand 20 billion baht in compensation for the G-to-G rice deals from six former key ministry officials.
Chutima Bunyapraphasara, permanent secretary for commerce, said the ministry had received a letter from the Finance Ministry, demanding it impose an administrative order on the former officials to pay compensation for damages from the fake G-to-G rice deals involving 6.2 million tonnes of government rice.
