Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said today that the rice from the controversial rice pledging scheme of the Yingluck Shinawatra government, which has been stored in a warehouse in Surin province for more than ten years, is still good and edible.
Accompanied by the governor Surin province, a group of reporters and rice surveyors, Phumtham visited the warehouse yesterday to check the quality of the grain. They also tasted samples of cooked rice.
The minister said that the rice was soft and edible, although its fragrance has diminished from years in storage, adding that the rice in the warehouse could be auctioned off and might fetch 17-18 baht per kilogram.
He also said that the rice must be washed about 15 times before being cooked which, he claimed, is not unusual.
The commerce minister explained that his intention in visiting the warehouse was not to revive the rice pledging scheme, but to check if the quality of the rice was good enough for sale.
There are about 150,000 sacks of rice in the warehouse, he said, adding that, if they could be sold to markets in Africa, they could generate up to 400 million baht.
He expects that a rice auction could be held next month at the latest, if the cabinet approves it today. He said that he wants the rice pledging scheme scandal to come to an end.
The scheme, which was launched by the Yingluck administration, is alleged to have cost the taxpayer over 500 billion baht, as the rice was purchased at about 50% above market price. Both former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and deputy commerce minister Poom Sarapol were handed hefty prison terms by the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office holders.
