The rice-pledging scheme of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra's government was a damaging political tactic to help her party to win a general election and rise to power, and to benefit corrupt associates, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) told the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on Thursday
Former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is hounded by reporters as she arrives at the parliament to deliver her closing statement in defence of her government's rice pledging scheme on Thursday. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)
Presenting the NACC's closing statement in its impeachment case against Ms Yingluck, commissioner Vicha Mahakun said Ms Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party had campaigned for votes by promising to give rice growers 15,000 baht per tonne of rice under its proposed rice-pledging scheme.
The promised price was twice the then market price of 7,500 baht per tonne. This campaign promise was clearly a populist policy to ensure Pheu Thai's election victory, to form a new government in place of the previous administration of former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, he said.
Mr Vicha said that in fact the "rice-pledging" scheme was not a pledging scheme at all, because the offered rate was far higher than the market price and no rice growers who pledged their rice would ever redeem it for less.
He said the Yingluck government called it a "rice-pledging" scheme only to prevent the government from being considered a rice trader in its own right with a monopoly because of the high price offered for the grain.
Mr Vicha also said that the rice-pledging scheme led to policy-based corruption, because rice in the government's stockpiles had been sold largely to associates at low prices, and these people later made huge profits from selling the grain at high prices.
Ms Yingluck's government had tried to cover up by claiming that it had released the rice under government-to-government deals which actually had not existed, Mr Vicha said.
NACC member Vicha Mahakun delivers his anti-graft panel's closing statement. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)
He also said that the NACC and the Office of the Auditor General had repeatedly urged her government to stop the rice scheme because it would cause endless losses to the state.
He said the implementation of the rice scheme from 2011 to 2014 resulted in a posted loss of 518 billion baht, meaning about 200 billion baht per year or 17 billion baht per month, and the state would take about three decades to repay the debts resulting from the loss incurred using the taxpayers' money.
Rice growers had committed suicide because they had fallen into financial strife while being forced to wait too too long for the pledged-rice money from the loss-ridden scheme of Ms Yingluck's government, Mr Vicha said.
In her closing statement, Ms Yingluck told the NLA that the impeachment case should not have been brought against her because the 2007 constitution that allowed the impeachment had already been revoked.
She also said that the impeachment could lead to the five-year suspension of her political rights and that would unfairly limit her fundamental rights.
She rejected the NACC's statement that it had spent one year and 10 months investigating the rice scheme. Actually, she said, the anti-graft panel had done it in only slightly over three months.
Ms Yingluck also said that she had received reservations about her rice scheme from concerned organisations, but those letters had not urged her to halt the scheme. A letter calling for the end of the scheme, from the Office of the Auditor General, arrived after she had dissolved the House of Representatives, she said.
She also complained that the NACC accepted her political opponents as witnesses in its investigation while rejecting several key witnesses that she had proposed.
The former prime minister denied that her rice-pledging scheme caused national damage. On the contrary, she said, it had benefited the national economy by increasing farmers' incomes and their spending stimulated the economy.
Ms Yingluck makes her closing statement. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)
The rice scheme had put extra money into circulation in the national economy, 308 billion baht in the 2011/2012 crop season and 315 billion baht in the 2012/2013 season, Ms Yingluck said.
The scheme acceptably consumed no more than five percent of the annual national budget, while helping take good care of 20 million farmers, she said.
As the economy was stimulated by this money entering circulation, the national economy recovered and the government could generate more revenue through taxation, she said.
Ms Yingluck denied the NACC accusation that the rice scheme allowed her government to monopolise the rice trade in the country. She said only half the total rice yield had entered the rice-pledging scheme.
Ms Yingluck also denied that she ignored reservations expressed about the project. She said that after receiving the warnings, she launched a corruption investigation and surveillance of the scheme's implementation.
She also argued that the implementation of the rice-pledging scheme involved so many ministers and committees she had assigned to handle it, it was unfair for her to face prosecution alone.
NLA president Pornphet Wichitcholchai scheduled the NLA's vote on the impeachment case for Friday Jan 23,the same day as the vote on the impeachment cases against former Senate speaker Nikom Wairatpanij and former House speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont on their constitutional amendment case.
The NLA will sit at 10am, and will vote first on the cases involving Mr Nikom and Mr Somsak.
