Anti-corruption commissioner Vicha Mahakhun indicated on Tuesday that the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) might take the impeachment case against former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders by itself — that is if the joint panel of the NACC and Office of the Attorney-General fails to reach a decision on the case by Nov 7.
The NACC has spent years probing alleged corruption in the former government's rice-pledging scheme, branded as the most corrupt single policy of a government ever known. Its frustration with the OAG's supposed foot-dragging in the case against Ms Yingluck is understandable although the OAG has defended its decision to ensure fairness to the accused.
The NACC believes it has a strong case against the former prime minister — not for graft charges related to the rice scheme itself as is widely misunderstood but for her alleged failure to prevent the scheme's widespread corruption.
This is not an act of revenge or an act of political persecution against Ms Yingluck as some members of the Pheu Thai Party have wanted their supporters to believe. It is a matter of political accountability.
As a matter of fact, the NACC, the Thailand Development and Research Institute and a host of scholars, on various occasions, had warned the government to modify or scrap the populist scheme because of the extensive damages and losses it caused. Over a dozen farmers committed suicide out of anxieties linked to the much-delayed rice payments.
Rice exports dropped to an all-time low to the extent that Thailand lost its ranking as the world's No.1 rice exporter. While the government could not sell rice at favourable prices, private exporters had no rice to export as the grains were all bought by the government under the scheme.
The exact losses from the rice scheme have yet to be identified. But we know for certain that the enormous losses will hamper government-sponsored development projects if the investment fund from annual budgets is to be used to cover the losses and to repay the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, the chief financier of the rice-pledging scheme.
Hence, the current regime decided to issue long-term government bonds to mobilise funds to cover losses estimated to run up to 800 billion baht. The Finance Ministry has assigned the Public Debt Management Office to work out the bond issuance plan.
This is not a new idea. Seventeen years ago the Financial Institutions Development Fund was created to save banks and other related bodies after ailing financial institutions went belly up in the worst financial crisis ever. Total losses were staggering, amounting to 1.4 trillion baht.
Government bonds were issued to mobilise funds domestically and internationally to save the banking industry in particular and the economy in general. But in the end, the sad truth is that repaying the debts was offloaded onto the taxpayers. And 17 years on, the debts are still being repaid.
Likewise this time, it is the taxpayers who will be made to foot the bills of this bond issuance scheme. They will have to pay for the policy mistakes of the previous government and the Pheu Thai Party which initiated the rice-pledging scheme.
The taxpayers therefore have every right to demand accountability from those who stole or profited from the scheme and from those who, deliberately or not, failed to stop the scheme's massive corruption.