While the fire which broke out on the second floor of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives last evening has already been extinguished, many questions remain regarding alleged widespread corruption in the ministry, pertaining to illegal pork and chicken imports, extortion in the Rice Department and aircraft procurement for the Royal Rain-making and Agricultural Aviation Department.
An electrical short circuit is initially being blamed for the fire in a wing of the building close to the office of Deputy Agriculture Minister Chaiya Promma. Forensic officers checked the scene of the fire today for clues as to the exact cause of the blaze.
Chaiya is assigned to oversee the Department of Livestock Development, the Royal Rain-making and Agricultural Aviation Department, the Queen Sirikit Sericulture Department and the Dairy Farming Promotion Organisation of Thailand.
The Department of Livestock and Fisheries, departments under the Ministry of Agriculture and the Customs Department under the Finance Ministry have, however, been embroiled in alleged massive corruption concerning the illegal import of frozen pork, worth tens of billions of baht, in the past few years. Meanwhile, the Royal Rain-making and Agricultural Aviation Department has been hit with allegations of corruption over the procurement of a fleet of aircraft for artificial rain-making operations.
The Rice Department is not under the supervision of Chaiya. The department is, however, under suspicion of corruption over the 15 billion baht budget allocated to reducing rice production costs and another 2 billion baht for the change of rice seeds for cultivation.
The suspected corruption was the subject of a probe by serial petitioner Srisuwan Janya, who was arrested with two other associates on extortion charges for trying to get 1.5 million baht from the director-general of the Rice Department in return for dropping their investigation.
