Meeting today to review budget for rice pledging scheme
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom will today call an urgent meeting of the National Rice Policy Committee to review the budget and total volume of rice production this year that will come under the government's pledging programme.
The move is to ensure that the Commerce Ministry’s proposal to ask for a Bt405-billion budget for a second year of rice price subsidy will be approved by the Cabinet next Tuesday.
The ministry proposed the plan for Cabinet approval this past Tuesday but it was rejected and widely questioned by concerned government agencies such as the Budget Bureau and the National Economic and Social Development Board.
Boonsong said the ministry might need to adjust the budget for the pledging scheme as the volume of rice that would be harvested from October this year to September next year would change.
Earlier, the ministry had expected about 25 million tonnes of paddy to enter the pledging project, which resulted in a budget allocation of Bt405 billion.
"The meeting will clarify the volume of rice that would be harvested and expected to enter the pledging scheme. The budget required for the second year could be changed," Boonsong said.
He added that the renewed pledging project for rice should start by October 1 this year.
Boonsong, who also chaired the meeting involving government agencies on rice-pledging project management, insisted yesterday that the government would continue the scheme to ensure higher incomes for farmers.
To resolve issues of graft, the minister said the government would adjust some of the procedures to keep out unscrupulous officials and corrupt traders. It will also stringently control rice smuggling from neighbouring countries to prevent circumvention of the pledging. Cases of corruption in the pledging scheme during the 2011-12 harvest season have been investigated by the Royal Thai Police and the Department of Special Investigation, Boonsong added.
The minister hit back at academics from the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) and denied that the pledging scheme had created huge losses for the country.
Yanyong Phuangrach, permanent secretary of the ministry, denied that the pledging project had led to market distortions. He said the project was aimed at helping increase farmers’ incomes. People should not look at it as a loss-making project for the country, he said.
Academics from NIDA said they would write to the Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra soon calling for an end to the pledging project as it was creating huge losses for the Kingdom.
