Ayutthaya: More low-quality rice was found yesterday during an inspection at a warehouse.
The inspection team now suspects good-quality rice pledged under the past government’s rice scheme could have been stealthily replaced with low-quality grains.
Praphasri Boonwiset, an inspector attached to the Prime Minister’s Office who serves as chairwoman of the National Council for Peace and Order’s (NCPO) rice inspection team No.1, said during an inspection at PP&P Co’s rice warehouse that at least a hundred sacks of rice were found to contain grains that had turned yellow or black.
The product had been stored at the warehouse for only 18 months, Ms Praphasri said.
The inspection team suspected someone had replaced good-quality new rice with lower-quality grains, she said.
Warehouse No.4 of PP&P Co is supposed to have 166,860 sacks of pledged rice in stock.
The inspection team, however, found some signs of irregularities in the actual number of rice sacks stored there.
The team suspected rice was missing because some holes were spotted in the neatly stacked pile of rice sacks, said Ms Praphasri. She said the team would know for sure if rice was missing after a thorough count of the sacks.
ML Panadda Diskul, permanent secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office who is in charge of the NCPO’s rice inspection programme, said 100 rice inspection teams were deployed to do the job which is expected to be completed in August.
Further examination of the samples of rice collected during the inspection, which includes DNA testing, will be completed by September, he said.
Asked whether the National Anti-Corruption Commission could expect to use the information compiled by rice inspection teams as evidence to pursue legal action against members of the ousted Yingluck Shinawatra government when the inspections are done, ML Panadda said he was only responsible for inspecting the quantity and quality of the pledged rice and has nothing to do with the matter after that.