Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Varathep Ratanakorn insisted that losses from the government’s rice pledging scheme were not as high as Bt260 billion as widely reported.
He said the Finance Ministry’s accounting assessment sub-committee and the Commerce Ministry had different calculation methodologies for the losses from rice purchases over the past three harvest seasons.
The government spent Bt118.655 billion to purchase 6.92 million tonnes of paddy from the 2011/12 crop, he said, adding that the Commerce Ministry and the Finance Ministry reported losses at Bt31 billion and Bt42 billion respectively.
In the 2011/12 second harvest, the minister said 14.6 million tonnes of paddy were bought at Bt218 billion and losses as reported by the Commerce Ministry and the Finance Ministry were Bt18 billion and Bt93 billion respectively.
He said Bt155 billion was spent to buy 9.9 million tonnes of rice in the 2012/13 harvest season but the final calculations have yet to be completed.
