Rice farmers are waiting anxiously for money from the government for their pledged crops. And taxpayers are also feeling that they are being robbed in broad daylight by the government which has defiantly dismissed all the warnings about the flaws of the rice-pledging scheme.
A worker loads rice grains onto a truck at a rice mill in Ayutthaya Province. Despite overwhelming criticisism against the bleeding rice pledging scheme, the caretaker Yingluck government vows in its election policy platform to push ahead with its controversial policies. Bloomberg/Dario Pignate lli/Bloomberg
In fact, several parties such as academics, mill owners, officials at the Finance Ministry, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives as well as the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) voiced serious concerns over this controversial scheme which offers 15,000 baht per tonne of pledged rice — 40-50% higher than the market prices. But Caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra simply did not listen to them, nor did she make any response to the concerns.
Instead Ms Yingluck, who is also chair of the National Rice Committee, and the Commerce Ministry simply shrugged off those voices, dismissing them as meaningless. News reporters who have covered this scheme experienced great difficulty in digging into the problems due to the extreme secrecy. For example, the issue of rice distribution was limited to only a few business groups amid reports of vanishing rice stocks totaling over one million tonnes. It is these disappearing rice stocks that have made it impossible for the Finance Ministry to finalise the scheme’s accounting. Yet, there have been no clear answers to these questions.
A committee tasked with rice-pledging scheme accounting under then deputy permanent secretary for finance Supa Piyajitti also faced difficulties in getting information as the scheme entered its third year. It was Ms Supa who unveiled corruption in the scheme and huge losses to the public.
While the government, backed by its majority in the House, was able to survive a no-confidence motion in parliament, a sub-committee of the NACC decided to indict former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom, his deputy Phum Saraphol, together with a number of Commerce Ministry officials and businessmen after finding that the government-to-government trade deal with China was just a farce.
While no charges have been filed yet against Ms Yingluck, the anti-graft body is to investigate her role in rice affairs. As head of the government, the prime minister cannot evade responsibility for the scheme that has used up more than 680 billion baht of taxpayers’ money.
Ms Yingluck has never paid heed to concerns expressed by the opposition or other groups over the scheme’s irregularities which include the shady selling of packs of rice aimed at low-income consumers. According to the Senate committee on agriculture, the rice, sold at 70 baht per 5kg bag, appeared to have leaked onto the market, causing the government to lose some 30 billion baht — or 50 billion baht at market prices.
Ms Yingluck should have heeded all those criticisms against the rice-pledging scheme and reacted accordingly in order to assure the public she had done her best to use our tax money for the good of the country. Instead, the prime minister kept on repeating her mantra like a broken record that “the scheme benefits the farmers” — a claim that seemingly contradicts reality.
Now that Sunday’s general election is approaching, the Pheu Thai Party is enticing voters with its policy platform. One of the election campaign posters caught my eye. It projects the sweetly smiling prime minister with the pledge “Fighting against corruption”. I read and reread that poster time and again in disbelief. I am certain I am not alone.
Wichit Chantanusornsiri is a senior economics reporter, Bangkok Post.