Rice farmers to get payments next week, Yingluck assures

Yingluck said details about the amounts to be paid would be revealed later.

Speaking at the office of the Permanent Secretary for Defence, her interim office, Yingluck said the Finance Ministry and relevant agencies had informed her the payments would be made.

The government owes about Bt130 billion to farmers, who have reacted angrily to the payment delay and are travelling to Bangkok to protest. There have been a number of loans totalling millions of baht made available previously from several resources, including small and medium-enterprise banks, while other loans have been granted to millers.

Yingluck said the government’s ability to pay farmers was the result of the Finance Ministry's efforts, and not the result of loans from financial institutions.

Deputy Finance Minister Benja Louichareon said the money – the amount was not specified – had been borrowed partly from the state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC).

Benja said the loan was secured under a Cabinet approval, dated September 23, 2013, and the Finance Ministry had provided financial resources to guarantee it.

She said that the Cabinet approval was legal and actionable but a House dissolution had made commercial banks hesitant to approve loans.

A group of 50 farmers has launched a class action against Yingluck and five former and current ministers, the BAAC, the Commerce Ministry and the state-owned Public Warehouse Organisation demanding more than Bt19 million in damages for non-payment subsidies under a scheme initiated by the Pheu Thai-led government.

A lawyer representing the farmers, Rat Netiwan, said another 100-plus farmers would join the action by Monday and file civil lawsuits against those responsible.

Meanwhile, a large number of farmers from 20 northeastern provinces are planning to gather at Lam Takhong Dam in Nakhon Ratchasima and head to Bangkok to protest outside the Finance Ministry. A protest leader, Praphas Chomparkkliang, said Northeast-based farmers would not take aid money offered by the anti-government People’s Democratic Reform Committee because they did not want to be dragged into the political war.

Ang Thong Governor Pawin Chamniprasart said he had no authority to look into mysterious night-time deliveries of rice in and out of a warehouse in Ang Thong, as it was likely privately-owned and likely not part of the rice-pledging scheme.