Govt faces rice rage

The government is facing mounting pressure with coalition parties criticising its move to cut the price for rice in its controversial pledging scheme and farmers massing in Bangkok today.

The Chart Thai Pattana Party expressed dissatisfaction yesterday at the way the government has dealt with huge losses in its rice-purchase scheme.

Chart Thai Pattana, the second largest coalition partner after the ruling Pheu Thai Party, called on the Pheu Thai-led Cabinet to review its decision last week to reduce the pledged price from Bt15,000 to Bt12,000 per tonne. It said the move would severely affect many farmers.

The party was short of excuses or explanations to give to angry farmers because the government had no convincing argument to cut the purchase price, according to Chanchai Prasertsuwan, a Chart Thai Pattana MP from Suphan Buri.

Chart Thai Pattana’s main support base is in the rice-growing Central plains. Banharn Silapa-archa, a former party leader who is Chart Thai Pattana’s patriarch and chief adviser, has called an urgent meeting of party MPs today to discuss the matter.

Chanchai said yesterday the government made a mistake in changing the pledged price without consulting farmers. “This will heavily affect farmers. Production costs have already increased.”

He called on Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom to expedite the sale of rice from government stockpiles.

The MP said he believed that farmers who will protest against the price cut in Bangkok today would really suffer from the decision. Provincial governors would be unable to stop farmers from coming to the capital, as instructed by the Interior Ministry.

“They are really the victims, and not a political mob,” he said.

“Government leaders want coalition MPs to help explain [the decision] with the farmers. The question is what will be our excuse? As a coalition partner, we [Chart Thai Pattana] want to help, but the government’s excuse is not convincing,” Chanchai said. 

“The first car [tax-exemption] policy has been a big budget burden and benefits only some groups of people, but it has not been cancelled. This rice-pledging scheme benefits the majority of people, but the price is cut because of a loss. What should we explain to the people?” he said.

The coalition MP said Cabinet should review its decision without fear of “losing face”, adding that there could be severe negative consequences.

Pheu Thai, meanwhile, denied yesterday that it was trying to block farmers from rallying in Bangkok to express discontent over the cut in the rice pledging price.

Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit said MPs had visited their constituents on the weekend to listen to complaints from farmers. People were urged to air grievances with district or provincial offices if they thought travelling to Bangkok would be inconvenient.

Pheu Thai secretary-general Phumtham Wechayachai said he was not worried about farmers rallying over the rice scheme as he believed farmers had the right to tell the government their problems, as long as they do it legally.

He dismissed claims the scheme would bring the government to a premature demise, saying the government was sincere in wanting to uphold farmers’ interests, and the scheme should be evaluated after the government served its full four-year term.

“The government will not allow corruption in the scheme. We will not hesitate to take necessary steps and will not fear adverse consequences or collateral damage that our action might cause,’’ Phumtham said.

Opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said Pheu Thai had spent more than Bt200 billion in implementing the scheme and only half of that money reached farmers. That meant the scheme suffered a loss of over Bt100 billion. 

“How is the government going to explain the losses to farmers? If the government spent Bt2 of taxpayers’ money for the scheme and Bt1 is given to farmers – so Bt1 is missing. Instead of finding the Bt1 that went missing, the government is going to give farmers less money,’’ said Abhisit, who leads the Democrat Party.

In a related development, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives has set aside Bt10 billion to be lent to farmers affected by the cut in pledged paddy price, BAAC executive vice president Boonthai Kaewkhuntee said yesterday. He said that farmers who take out loans would be entitled to an interest-rate cut of 3 per cent.