Rice stockpile to be audited

Rice stockpile to be audited

More than 100 teams will inspect rice stocks to ascertain the quality and quantity of the remaining grain pledged to the previous government at 1,800 warehouses nationwide, PM's office permanent secretary ML Panadda Diskul said on Friday.

ML Panadda, chairman of the sub-committee inspecting the remaining government’s rice stock, said the inspection panels would compare the amount and quality of the rice against the figures given by the Commerce Ministry.

The teams would comprise representatives from the army, interior and commerce ministries, PM's office and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). 

The inspection will start immediately after the sub-committee will receive rice stock data from Commerce Ministry within this month so in the meantime potential inspectors would be trained of what they have to look for. The training would require at least two days and will be conducted in all regions across the country.

ML Panadda said the inspection would be done as fast as possible but it would depend on the amount of remaining stocks reported by the Commerce Ministry. However, there must be verification of the amount held in stock from other agencies, such as the national police and the Office of the auditor-general.

A woman cleans a rice warehouse in Suphanburi in February 2014. (Photo by Thiti Wannamontha)

Inspections would be without prior warning at over 1,800 warehouses in all parts of the country.

“The inspection aims to establish the most correct figure of the stock, not just surface checking. The sub-committee has already sought cooperation from provinces not to allow movement of the stockpile,” he said. 

The unconfirmed amount of grain in the government stockpile is a core issue in the NACC deciding that former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was guilty of dereliction of duty as chair of the National Rice Policy Committee and had failed to deal with corruption and heavy losses in the rice-pledging scheme.

It was alleged there were  2.97 million tonnes of rice  missing from the government stockpile.

The issue is still subject to argument between a sub-committee on closing the account of the rice pledging scheme, chaired by then deputy permanent secretary of finance Supa Piyajitti, the Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO), and the Marketing Organisation for Farmers (MOF).

The state-run organisations argued there is no missing rice.

During the Yingluck  administration farmers pledged a total of 44.52 million tonnes of unmilled rice to the government. Commerce Ministry. An estimated 5 million tonnes of rice were said to remain in warehouses.

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