Not 45 but 15 days, Prime Minister Yingluck and her team of lawyers will have the opportunity to prepare her defense against the charge of negligence and dereliction of duty. The National Anti-Commission Commission (NACC) is strict, it doesn't want to wait long.
Yingluck is suspected by the NACC of not doing anything about the huge losses made with the rice mortgage system and corruption as chairman of the National Rice Policy Committee. The committee will already prosecute fifteen people, including two former ministers, for fraud.
When Yingluck is found guilty, the committee begins a so-called impeachment procedure, which could lead to her forced departure. She must then cease her work with immediate effect.
Yesterday, Yingluck received a helping hand from about a hundred pro-government demonstrators. They gathered in front of the NACC office and [happy taste] threw bags of feces at the image of NACC commissioner Vicha Mahakhun, who is the bitten dog. They also burned a fake coffin intended for Vicha. According to the demonstrators, the committee is out to bring down the Yingluck government.
Yingluck should have appeared at the NACC last month, but she failed to appear. She has also been called up for today. The lawyers had asked for a 45-day extension, the committee made it 15 days, starting today.
On Wednesday, farmers blocked the Department of Commerce and cut electricity. As a result, the auction of 250.000 tons worth 3 billion baht of rice through the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand could not take place.
Kittisak Ratanawaraha, a peasant leader from Pichit and other northern provinces, defends the move. The auction would not bring any benefit to farmers, as the rice would go at a loss-making price of 6.000 baht per ton.
“The government is just trying to buy time. Most farmers do not want the government to stay on and continue to dupe them. We will do everything we can to persuade her to step down and make room for a new government that can compensate the rice growers for the damage.'
Meanwhile, the government is scrambling to find money for the farmers, many of whom have been waiting since October for money for the rice they have surrendered. There is still something of 130 billion baht to be paid. A number of farmers will be made happy on Monday. These are paid from an amount of 20 billion baht that the government borrows from the emergency provisions item of the budget.
Democratic party spokesperson Chavanond Intarakomalyasut says that this emergency measure could cause problems because the Electoral Council (which had to give permission) has set the condition that the money must be returned by the end of May at the latest.
Mortgage system is now subsidy system
The rice mortgage system, reintroduced by the Yingluck government, was launched in 1981 by the Ministry of Commerce as a measure to alleviate the oversupply of rice in the market. It provided farmers with short-term income, allowing them to postpone selling their rice.
Because the prices paid by the government are 40 percent above market prices, it is better to speak of a subsidy system, because no farmer pays off the mortgage and sells the rice on the open market.
The payment problems arose because the rice, which has been bought up over the past two rice seasons, is difficult to sell. Rice from Vietnam and India is cheaper. Those countries therefore overtook Thailand in 2012 as the largest rice exporter in the world.
In the photo, policemen have taken off their uniforms to collect rice from the Ministry of Finance that farmers had dumped in protest at the lack of payments.
(Source: Bangkok Post, March 14, 2014)
Allow me to add to the above message.
Thousands of files are gathering dust at the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the NACC. Some of those files are about rice. Some of the charges go back to the price guarantee system for rice, part of Abhisit's populist policies; those files have now been lying there for 1500 days without any conclusion. The rumors, speculations and indictments to the NACC regarding corruption in Yingluck's rice mortgage system date back to 2012. As far as I know, none of these indictments have been finalized to date. If anyone knows if that's the case, I'd love to hear about it. Specific cases please.
A few weeks ago there was a discussion on television with 6 farmers. They were asked whether there was a lot of corruption around the rice mortgage system. Possibly they said, but probably not. "We're not stupid," one added. Most of their problems were with the millers, tampering with scales and moisture meters. (Paddy must have a humidity level of 15 percent, above or below that affects the price). "We'll fix that ourselves." they said.
My conclusion, therefore, is that the NACC should be prosecuted for breaching their duty to complete corruption charges within a reasonable time.
dear tina,
The subsidy on rice was not invented by Abhisit and his government but by the previous red shirt affiliated governments. Abhisit has changed the system.
So much has now been written (in the domestic and foreign press) and talked about the corruption in rice that for me (and I think for the vast majority of the Thai people, including the farmers according to recent opinion polls) it is as clear as day. says things are seriously wrong. Who is responsible for this will hopefully become apparent in the near future.
The peasants are indeed not stupid. If there were no subsidy on the rice, they would receive much less for their rice. In that case, of course, you say on TV that there is no corruption, afraid if you are that the whole system will be abolished (as many many national and international bodies have insisted many times).
Only 1 foreign source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/10618134/Burmese-smugglers-get-rich-on-Yingluck-Shinawatras-13-billion-Thai-rice-subsidies.html
It is also important that the NACC is impartial in this case, otherwise I will never reach a fair and just result.
You can compare it with many comments here on the blog when it comes to a topic like this or other politically related topics.
What is their truth at that moment turns out to be slightly different later.
Perhaps it is because within the NACC people walk around with red and yellow glasses, which means that people are no longer objective and this is the reason why some files remain undisclosed for so long.
Do any of us remember the brave Khun Supa Piyajitti?
Yingluck (“show me the corruption”) really blew the whistle in September last year, when Supa suggested that the rice system was highly susceptible to corruption.
I don't think it is at all illogical that Yingluck's actions will now be examined by an authority such as the NACC (who else?). For many this is already six months too late.
Let's first wait and see what facts and evidence the NACC will come up with in the near future.
http://thaiintelligentnews.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/corruption-focus-2-yingluck-says-show-me-corruption-not-just-talk-i-will-prosecute-all/