The Thai Cabinet on Tuesday endorsed in principle a second round of the
government's rice price-pledging scheme for the upcoming harvest season that
would require as much as 450 billion baht (US$14.5 billion).
The decision was made despite
questions of irregularities involving the first phase of the controversial
project, in which cost as much as 300 billion baht, and suspicions that certain
politicians in power would benefit from the project.
Details of the project will still
need to be worked out by Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom, who is in
charge of it, and his colleagues from Agriculture and Finance ministries. The
project will require endorsement by a screening committee before it can be
forwarded to the Cabinet for the final go-ahead.
The government earlier put a
brake on the first phase of its rice-pledging scheme after reports of
irregularities. Critics said certain figures in Pheu Thai Party made personal
gains from this project, as well as others being implemented under this
administration.
Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra, in an apparent bid to show that her government was serious about
tackling graft, recently appointed her deputy Chalerm Yoobamrung to head a
panel charged with investigating and examining corruption allegations. But no
evident progress has been made.
Politicians from the opposition
Demo-crat Party have attacked the government's rice scheme and are expected to
focus on it when grilling the administration in the censure debate likely to be
called soon.
Moreover, the National
Anti-Corruption Commission opposed the project in a written statement to the
government, pointing to loopholes that could allow corruption and waste of the
taxpayer's money.
However, the government has been
undaunted in implementing the policy, which was a Pheu Thai election-campaign
promise - as opposed to the price-guarantee rice-subsidy programme by the
previous Democrat-led government.
The Yingluck administration has
been waiting for the opposition and criticism against its price-pledging policy
to diminish. In mid-August, amid a strong wave of criticism, the Commerce
Ministry sought Cabinet endorsement for the project's second phase, but a
decision was postponed until this Tuesday. A government source said time was
running out, as the second phase needs to start in October to be in time for
the next harvest season.
"The prime minister was
worried. She wanted to wait until after the opposition's censure debate, and
the criticism was expected to lessen. But the opposition seems to have made no
moves about the censure debate, so she has decided to go ahead," the
source said.
A recent opinion poll showed
farmers appeared to be supporting the programme. It was found that 86.5 per
cent of farmers surveyed wanted the government to implement either a price-pledging
or a price-subsidy scheme. And more than 35.4 per cent of the respondents said
they were more satisfied with the price-pledging option because they could get
more money and get paid faster.
To restore confidence in the
pledging programme, Yingluck went to Phitsanulok last weekend to observe how
the scheme was implemented. She announced that computer technology would be
used to record information obtained by the ministries of Interior, Agriculture
and Finance, and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives to
determine if anything wrong. However, such plans cannot guarantee that there
will be no graft.
Yingluck admitted some people
abused legal loopholes for "systematic corruption". But, she added
that probes into irregularities should not be a reason for the project to be
delayed.
She will then need a good
explanation for the taxpayer if her government's price-pledging programme is
marred by irregularities again.
US$1 = 30. 8 baht
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