There is plenty of fraud with rice
It has been established before: the government's reintroduced rice mortgage system is highly prone to corruption. And not only that: it distorts the market and costs the taxpayer a lot of money.
To recap. Farmers mortgage their paddy (unhusked rice) with the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. They receive 1 baht for 15.000 ton of white rice (depending on quality and humidity), and 1 baht for 20.000 ton of Hom Mali (jasmine rice). Because the market price is 5.000 baht lower, this is good for farmers, but bad for the government, which takes over the rice and has to sell it to exporters and packers, a rather opaque process that is open to abuse.
But also at an earlier stage, the possibilities for corruption are endless. The farmers hand over their paddy to rice millers, who store the rice for the government. Previous articles in the Bangkok Post have already pointed to tampering with scales, the equipment that measures humidity, etc., as a result of which farmers receive less than the amounts promised. Officials who inspect the submitted rice cooperate in this.
Mortgage system has led to massive corruption
A recent article mentions a number of other possibilities. Pointwise:
- Rice millers mix cheaper rice from Pathum Thani and Phitsanulok, which has a similar long grain, with the more expensive Hom Mali and place it in the mortgage system as 100 percent Hom Mali.
- Rice millers falsify their inventory lists. They sell government rice to packers or exporters and later buy rice from other sources so that their supply will be correct when the government calls the mortgaged rice.
- Rice millers sell Hom Mali, which they keep in stock for the government, and later buy lower-grade rice to replenish their supply.
“The mortgage system has led to massive corruption,” says a rice industry source. "The fact that the mortgage price is significantly higher than the market price has created a gap that can easily be exploited by malicious people in the trade."
Fraud is difficult to combat
Controlling government stocks and detecting fraud is no easy task, as rice millers are smart enough to make sure their stocks are in order when they get audited. But as soon as the inspectors have taken their heels, the rumbling starts again. Fraud could be combated by introducing DNA testing. Inspectors are currently cooking the rice samples for inspection. When Kittiratt Na-Ranong, now Finance Minister, was Commerce Minister, he said that test equipment would be bought, but nothing has been heard of it since.
According to the current minister of commerce, there is no politically related corruption in the rice trade. Stocks were checked in April and no irregularities were found, he says. And Kittiratt insists that the mortgage system is beneficial to farmers.
Exports are falling dramatically
In any case, it is not beneficial for export. It has fallen since September last year, first as a result of the floods and as of this year as a result of the too high price. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that Thailand exports 6,5 million tons this year against 11 million tons last year and 9 million tons the year before. Vietnam and India are expected to overtake Thailand this year with 7 million tons each. That rice is cheaper and quality is not inferior to Thai rice.
Meanwhile, this season the government is stuck with a stock of 6,8 million tons (first harvest, from November last year) and 4,9 million tons (second harvest), which it has to get rid of. Who offers?
“Fraud is difficult to combat,” the article said.
Take the government out of the picture and the fraud will disappear like snow in the Thai sun. A breeze.
moderator: Not posted because the mortgage crisis in the western world has nothing to do with this story.
Hahaha as Flumina says, get the government out and the fraud is combated!
Again and undoubtedly there are many people who only and exclusively know people in the rice corner of Thailand who work hard 365 days a year, I know almost exclusively who work 1.5 to 2 months a year to finish it, (growing rice) their send daughter to the bar, and demonstrate herself for the rest of the year, in front of the country's biggest corrupt bird.
And the consumer? The Thai citizen and the expat residing in Thailand? What kind of rice do they find in the supermarket? I don't want to say that if that rice is of the same quality as before (at the same price too), then there is no problem. There is an export side to this story, but also a for-domestic-use side to this story. And I suspect that also and especially the Thai citizen and (to a lesser extent, because they are richer) the expat are the victims, both in terms of price and the quality of the rice (which is influenced by something completely different: the increasingly applied high degree of grinding, but that in itself is another - also important - story). Anyway: it concerns here (not only an export article but also and above all) a national food. That is very serious if there is something fundamentally wrong with it.
That's right, Willem, it is serious, but the ones who destroy it, and create the problem, are the same as those who become victims of it.
It's just a pity that they don't want to see it after all this time!
Isaan sleeps on, and when they wake up they cheat with that rice, and when there is no more rice, you just go and pay for a demonstration! To top it off, you also get much-needed rice for free, at the demonstration site.
If all those people just went to work, about 8-10 hours a day, all problems would be solved quickly.
But I'm afraid that will take a long time