Exporters threaten govt with lawsuit

Rice exporters plan to sue the government over its controversial rice-pledging scheme, saying it distorts the market mechanism and competes with private trading enterprises, while academics will soon ask the government to end the project.
Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary adviser to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, yesterday said the association was also considering taking the government to court if this year’s export volume dropped to 6.5 million tonnes, as forecast by exporters, against the 8.5 million to 9 million tonnes still being projected by the government.
“Exporters are now gathering evidence and information on export volume and lost export opportunity under the government’s pledging project during the past year. If this year’s figure clearly shows a failure in terms of rice exports, we will file a petition to the court,” he said.
Although the government has claimed it will be able to release a huge volume of rice under government-to-government contracts, overall export volume this year will prove whether it has exaggerated the situation.
This year’s export figure will clearly prove whether the pledging project has succeeded or failed, he added.
Chookiat also said the government would continue to face huge losses if it went ahead and continued the pledging project for another year, while cumulative stockpiles of rice could exceed 20 million tonnes next year.
Adis Israngkura, dean of the School of Development Economics at the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), said the school would soon write to the government calling for cancellation of the pledging project, as it had led to huge financial losses for the Kingdom.
“Many lecturers at the school, and other academics from the Thailand Development Research Institute, agree that the pledging programme has brought huge losses to social welfare, while farmers have not really benefited from the scheme. We [academics] would therefore like to protect our country’s interests,” he said.
Medhi Krongkaew, a special adviser to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, said he had been informed by lecturers at the School of Development Economics that the school would file a case with the Constitution Court, accusing the government of breaching Article 84 (1) of the Constitution by competing with the private sector in trading and creating an unfair trading system.
“The government’s rice-pledging scheme has not only created huge losses in financial terms for the Kingdom, but also destroyed the rice-trading system. This is a critical issue in which the government has proceeded with the wrong policy, and it should be stopped,” he said.
Medhi said legal action would be taken by academics in order to show transparency and prove that there are no conflicts of interest among the academic community in regard to the rice-pledging issue.
The government is now also under increasing pressure over its plan to proceed with a second-year pledging scheme for rice, with the Cabinet on Tuesday not approving a continuation of the project, which should commence early next month.
During the Cabinet discussion, government officials raised concern over the potential stockpile of paddy, which could reach 50 million tonnes next year if the scheme were to be extended, while the government would also have to allocate a huge budget to continue the pledging.
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom said the Cabinet’s failure to give the final go-ahead to an extension of the programme did not mean the scheme would not be continued for a second year.
Ministers had merely requested clearer budget details, he said, adding that his ministry would resubmit the plan to start second-year pledging to the Cabinet next week.
Meanwhile, nine entities took part in the latest bidding for 586,000 tonnes of jasmine rice and other rice grains, conducted by the Foreign Trade Department yesterday.
The department will call for the bidders to bargain on prices tomorrow, after which a final decision will be taken on whether to sell this batch of rice.