BANGKOK, 17 February 2014 The Finance Minister has given an assurance that all farmers registered under the government’s rice support program would be paid.
On his Facebook page, Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong has reconfirmed that the government will definitely make payments to all the farmers for their pledged rice, adding that the government has been sincere all along and wanted to help the farmers, but a group of people trying to link the problematic rice scheme to politics has disrupted the planned payment.
The Government Savings Bank earlier decided to loan 5 billion baht to the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) in a bid to help ease the pressure on the government. Despite the huge amount of loan, it is only a fraction of what is needed–130 billion baht– to pay off the government’s debts to up to a million farmers.
