Thailand: Failure Of Rice Pledging Scheme Leaves Huge Financial Burden

[Flashermac]

"that Thailand’s ruling party hoped would aid millions of its poor rural supporters..."

 

 

What a crock. It was meant to get votes. Whether it worked or not was irrelevant. But they hadn't expected that their own stupidity would reach around and bite them on the arse.

[Flashermac]

The farmers finally get some help.

 

 

https://www.facebook...&type=1

[Flashermac]

EC to sue anyone linked it to rice-pledging scheme

 

 

The Election Commission (EC) is threatening to sue anyone who claims the body is responsible for the government's repeated postponement of payments to farmers through its rice-pledging scheme.

 

EC commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn dismissed on Friday claims the body barred the government from seeking loans to finance the scheme.

 

More than a million farmers across the country are owed money under the scheme.

 

"The EC has no mandate whatsoever on the issue," Somchai said.

 

"It's just that the Constitution prohibits a caretaker government from incurring debts that will affect the next government."

 

He produced a photo of an internet message that read: "Why can't farmers get payments from the rice pledging scheme? The EC has tried to prevent the payments." Somchai's picture was attached to the message.

 

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/EC-to-sue-anyone-linked-it-to-rice-pledging-scheme-30226314.html

[Mekong]

I don't believe for one moment that EC will Sue any of the Farmers, but this reiterates the what a lot of people, in here included, have already stated, the fact that your average Pheu Thai / Red Shirt Voter does not understand the rules of governance or the constitution, "Yingluk promised it must be somebody else's fault" not as if the Shinwatra's would lie to them is it?

 

WAKE UP they have been lying to the rest of the country since before January 2001, July 1998 in fact where was the Platform?

1. 30 Baht Healthcare
   
2. Extended debt moratorium for farmers
   
3. 1 Million Baht Microcredit funds for each Sukapibian
   
4. OTOP (One Tambon One Product)
   

 

That is what got TRT in back in January 2001, IMHO the only one that applied honestly was OTOP.

 

As for 3) 1 Million Baht Microcredit, this happened just after Advanced Info Service, AKA AIS, also known as SHIN corp had 98% cellphone coverage upcountry where landlines are few and far between back then maybe one public telephone per Sukapibian (less than 7,000 people). So every 7000 people were given a 1 Million Baht loan and what did they do, all ran out bought Mobile phones and used what today is "One2Go" AIS pay as you go mobile phone service. When the loans were not being repaid TRT just quoted 2) Extended debt moratorium for farmers, we promised them extended credit we cannot force them to repay so all the tax payers money had bee fritted away and ended up in the accounts of AIS, a company founded by Thaksin and the CEO was Yingluk his little sister.

 

Not a bad little scam if you can pull it off.

 

The rest brings up to where we are today

[cavanami]

TIT

 

..and the Thais are well known to fuck up corn flakes...so the rice joke is as expected!!!

[radioman]

The timeline is significant. In KNR's open letter responding to MRPD's open letter he details some interesting points:

 

"For the wet-season rice 2013/14, the scheme was approved on Sept 3, 2013 and the pledging started from Oct 1, 2013 onward. The payments were made efficiently during the early phase. And we already paid 60 billion baht without any delays.

 

Due to political problems caused by the opposition, however, the annual budget approval became delayed, followed by the seizure of the Finance Ministry, the Budget Bureau, and the resignations of the opposition, leading to the House dissolution. The government then had to follow legal procedures to find more money. There have been organised efforts to threaten banks and state agencies which have further delayed the efforts to obtain the money. But the Finance Ministry continues to do our duty in accordance with the cabinet resolutions and relevant laws, carefully and correctly."

 

So pledging started Oct 1st 2013 and payments were made, up to some point in time.

 

I have 2 questions:

 

Were all the previous pledge debts to farmers settled prior to the Oct 1st pledging start?

 

When did the budget delay first surface and how does that link to the timing of the amnesty bill that triggered the political protests? (Amnesty bill passed the lower house on Nov 1st, 2014 budget bill was passed as constitutional by the CC on Oct 4th}

 

So if the 2014 budget was already passed, what prevents the caretaker gov paying the farmers.

[Mekong]

The timeline is significant. In KNR's open letter responding to MRPD's open letter he details some interesting points:

 

"For the wet-season rice 2013/14, the scheme was approved on Sept 3, 2013 and the pledging started from Oct 1, 2013 onward. The payments were made efficiently during the early phase. And we already paid 60 billion baht without any delays.

 

Due to political problems caused by the opposition, however, the annual budget approval became delayed, followed by the seizure of the Finance Ministry, the Budget Bureau, and the resignations of the opposition, leading to the House dissolution. The government then had to follow legal procedures to find more money. There have been organised efforts to threaten banks and state agencies which have further delayed the efforts to obtain the money. But the Finance Ministry continues to do our duty in accordance with the cabinet resolutions and relevant laws, carefully and correctly."

 

So pledging started Oct 1st 2013 and payments were made, up to some point in time.

 

I have 2 questions:

 

Were all the previous pledge debts to farmers settled prior to the Oct 1st pledging start?

 

When did the budget delay first surface and how does that link to the timing of the amnesty bill that triggered the political protests? (Amnesty bill passed the lower house on Nov 1st, 2014 budget bill was passed as constitutional by the CC on Oct 4th}

 

So if the 2014 budget was already passed, what prevents the caretaker gov paying the farmers.

 

In answer to Question 1 NO, only about 25% of farmers have been paid for the last harvest the rest have been waiting up to 6 months to be paid

 

In answer to Question 2, it is not a delay, the rice pledging scheme is Bankrupt, basically PTP became a cartel promising to pay 150% of Market price for all rice, they have it in the warehouses and no money to pay for it. Now it is coming up to the next harvesting season.

 

So basically under the Rice Pledging scheme PTP have stolen all the rice from the farmers, cannot say purchased since they have not paid for it, stockpiled in warehouses and now have it stuck there since all of these proposed "Overseas Agreements" (See China) have fallen through. Lack of money is one major concern to the farmers but another more pushing one is the next harvesting season starts in a couple of weeks.

 

Now one thing PTP could do is flood the world market with cheap rice to clear the warehouses, but that would contravene World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements and you can bet your bottom dollar that India, Vietnam and too a lesser extent China won't take that lying down.

 

They could always try becoming a world hub of Sato producers

[radioman]

Okay, so the budget has been passed, before parliament was dissolved. Payments to farmers from the 2014 budget would not add debt to any future gov. Unless...

 

And the rest is clear, if the gov start selling the stockpiled rice as the next harvest comes to market the farmers get their pants pulled down again.

[Mekong]

Their pants are already pulled down, they are about to get shafted.

[Flashermac]

Pics by Michael Yon:

 

Suthep has been successfull in getting donations for the protesting farmers. This is just a portion of it ...

 

 

And medical volunteers have turned out to help them.

 

 

 

Interesting interview with Suthep. Here is part of it:

 

 

<< Suthep continued, "I insist that the easiest thing to do would be to sell the rice," and he continued with some transaction details. Suthep mentioned that the government had tried to monopolize the rice market, by trying to form a cartel.

 

This next part is important. This part has been told to me by various experts, and now by Suthep. He said the government does not really wish to sell the rice inventory, because to truly attempt to do so, will reveal the status of the inventory. With this inventory information, the accounting loss will be realized and no longer deferred or hidden. If you know the true volume of the inventory, and the value (quality) of the rice, you will be able to calculate the true losses the government has incurred after the massive investment.

 

(My thought: that the government refuses to return the rice to the farmers supports this theory.)

 

We talked more about rice, and then back to the idea that the government is not truly interested in selling the rice because this will result in buyers inspecting the inventory.

 

Dr. Warong, a rice scandal expert, had told me this, just this same morning, during a much longer and more detailed talk about the rice. Dr. Warong is widely seen as one of the foremost experts on the rice scandal, who publicly predicted all this was going to happen long ago. Dr. Warong had warned about it many times and now it has come to pass. It is not that people did not believe Dr. Warong, but that the Thaksin crew was busy raking in the cash.

 

Not only is the quality of the rice in question, with inventory stored improperly and with contaminants, but the true inventory volume is in question. Some believe that the available inventory is only perhaps half of what the government claims. In other words, in some cases, much inventory might already have been sold with all the cash pocketed.

 

Suthep said that he believes that though the government claims there is 18 million tons of rice inventory, half of that does not even exist. Part of this might have been fraud on behalf of the millers, who issued paper to farmers for their rice, but issued more paper than any inventory they actually received. They then took that paper to the bank and were paid for it. This of course would be fraud. There are about 3,000 millers, making this is difficult to audit. >>

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151955207835665