CHACHOENGSAO — Inspectors checking supplies of rice stockpiled under the former government’s failed rice-pledging scheme opened a locked warehouse here to find bags of dust mixed with insect waste.
Rice dust and grains pour out of its decayed sack while a porter is restacking a pile for counting before a soldier at a warehouse of the Marketing Organisation for Farmers in Chachoengsao on Tuesday. (Photo by Pattanapong Hirunard)
Authorities said they were disappointed to find that a substantial portion of rice at the Marketing Organisation for Farmers (MOF) facility in Chachoengsao's Phanom Sarakham district had deteriorated, spoiled and been eaten by weevils.
Inspector-general of the Interior Ministry Wasiwa Sasisamit said MOF had been storing 88,005 sacks of government rice since 2012. The inspection team, which included soldiers from the 111th Infantry Regiment, arrived to find a scattered pile of rice sacks that supposedly contained 5% broken white rice.
Inspectors ordered the bags restacked so they could be counted. As workers did so, some sacks broke open, shooting dusty clouds of what used to be rice into the air. It was then the officials noticed how many of the bags seemed flatter than normal.
As inspectors moved further inside the warehouse, they found plenty of rice dust, dead weevils and bug waste covering many sacks and the floor. Similar damage was noticeable in another pile of 1,792 sacks of 25% broken white rice.
Boromwit Waruprapha, deputy commander of the 111th Infantry Regiment, planned to file a complaint with local police, but members of the inspection team convinced him to wait for a quality test and calculation of how much rice was damaged.
The dust-to-dust discovery was only the latest chapter in rice-pledging scheme's disastrous history. The programme, cooked up by the Pheu Thai Party and former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, paid farmers 50% above market rates for rice in an attempt to bolster the party's popularity in rural areas and distort the international rice market.
The result was government losses of 500 billion baht (corrected), rampant corruption and, ultimately, tens of thousands of sacks of wasted rice.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission Friday recommended that prosecutors indict Ms Yingluck for dereliction of duty in failing to halt the rice scheme.
After assuming power, the National Council for Peace and Order ordered a check of the quality and quantity of government rice stocks. About 100 inspection teams are checking stockpiles nationwide, a task not expected to conclude until September.
Col Boromwit said that soldiers earlier had inspected the warehouse and found rotten rice, so they had locked the MOF facility until ministry officials could examine it Tuesday. The same depot made headlines last year after local cassava farmer reported the strong odour of weevil waste emanating from the warehouse.
A Senate rice sub-committee had even visited the warehouse and found rice dust damaged by weevils and insect waste on the floor.
Warehouse staff, addressing concerns about missing rice, said good-quality rice had been sold, but that other stock dating back to 2012 had deteriorated. Thus, the Interior Ministry's Mr Wasiwa said, rice may not have been stolen. It simply had been eaten by weevils.
Soldiers inspect a warehouse stocking pledged rice in Chachoengsao's Phanom Sarakham district on Tuesday. The warehouse stores about 88,000 sacks of rice and a portion of it has already rotten. (Photos by Pattanapong Hirunard)