Rice traders who have won the auctions for government rice are unable to take delivery of the grains because they do not meet the specifications specified in the the bidding terms of reference, said Mrs Duangporn Rodpayat, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, on Tuesday.
She disclosed that the rice stored in some warehouses was different from type put on auction. “For instance, we put on auction 5 percent rice but the buyers found out that the rice in the warehouse was different. Or in the latest case, we put on auction sticky rice. But the buyers found out they were rotten rice,” she said.
Asked how come? Mrs Duangporn blamed the warehouse owners and the surveyors for not checking the rice bought by the previous government that were kept in their warehouses whether they met with the specifications or not.
Asked why the discrepancy was not detected before the auctions were staged by the government, she admitted that officials concerned only made random inspection of the rice for auctions because they could not examine all the rice in the warehouses.
However, she said that the Public Warehouse Organistion and the Market Organisation for Farmers, the two state-owned organizations, had been told by the Commerce Ministry to address the problem for the successful rice bidders.
She suggested that the warehouse owners and the surveyors would have to be held accountable for the discrepancy on the qualities of the grains because the successful bidders would have to export the rice to their customers within the timeframe as agreed upon.
