Attorney General's Office sets up joint probe panel due to 'weak evidence'
Former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who faces serious charges of dereliction of duty, was yesterday given a respite concerning her government's allegedly corruption-ridden rice-pledging scheme.
Public prosecutors cited "weak evidence" in calling for the joint panel to be set up within 14 days and for it to spend up to 14 days probing into her case.
Yingluck's lawyer Norawich Lalang believed in the innocence of Yingluck and her ousted government in overseeing and implementing the pledging scheme for rice farmers.
Wanchai Rujanawong, spokesman for the attorney-general's office, said the joint investigation was aimed at strengthening the case against her and plugging all the loopholes so that it would be "perfect" before public prosecutors made the case against her at the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders.
Because of the Yingluck government's fiasco with its flagship populist policy, the state ended up suffering the biggest loss of more than Bt500 billion (US$16 billion) in the two-and-a-half years since 2011, according to the TDRI's latest paper.
The rice-pledging scheme was launched by the Yingluck administration in 2012. It ended early this year. For two years - from 2012-13 and 2013-14 main and second crops, about Bt870 billion (US$27 billion) was spent to purchase 44.1 million tonnes of paddy for the government's stocks. This made the government the biggest rice stocks holder and trader. Now the government has about 18 million tonnes of milled rice in its warehouses. With such an enormous volume of rice for storage, the government had to rent more than 1800 warehouses.
Thailand has also surrendered its crown as the largest rice exporter in the world, with shipments overseas plummeting to only 6.9 million tonnes last year from 10.6 million tonnes in the previous year, due to the high export price of Thai rice. The pledging price had been set at double the market price at the time.
Read more HERE.
Former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who faces serious charges of dereliction of duty, was yesterday given a respite concerning her government's allegedly corruption-ridden rice-pledging scheme.
Public prosecutors cited "weak evidence" in calling for the joint panel to be set up within 14 days and for it to spend up to 14 days probing into her case.
Yingluck's lawyer Norawich Lalang believed in the innocence of Yingluck and her ousted government in overseeing and implementing the pledging scheme for rice farmers.
Wanchai Rujanawong, spokesman for the attorney-general's office, said the joint investigation was aimed at strengthening the case against her and plugging all the loopholes so that it would be "perfect" before public prosecutors made the case against her at the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders.
Because of the Yingluck government's fiasco with its flagship populist policy, the state ended up suffering the biggest loss of more than Bt500 billion (US$16 billion) in the two-and-a-half years since 2011, according to the TDRI's latest paper.
The rice-pledging scheme was launched by the Yingluck administration in 2012. It ended early this year. For two years - from 2012-13 and 2013-14 main and second crops, about Bt870 billion (US$27 billion) was spent to purchase 44.1 million tonnes of paddy for the government's stocks. This made the government the biggest rice stocks holder and trader. Now the government has about 18 million tonnes of milled rice in its warehouses. With such an enormous volume of rice for storage, the government had to rent more than 1800 warehouses.
Thailand has also surrendered its crown as the largest rice exporter in the world, with shipments overseas plummeting to only 6.9 million tonnes last year from 10.6 million tonnes in the previous year, due to the high export price of Thai rice. The pledging price had been set at double the market price at the time.
Read more HERE.
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