Bt136 billion losses from rice subsidy in 2011/2012 crop

[laurab74]

So let's get this right.

They brought 21.7M tonnes for 352Bn

They have 156Bn of rice left - although they don't say if this value is the purchase price or projected selling price. Let's figure it as the purchase price.

156Bn is 44.3% of 352Bn - meaning they sold 55.7% of the rice or approximately 12M tonnes for 59Bn - which by my calculations is about 4,900 Baht per tonne.

Is my maths incorrect here?

If my math is correct 21.7 million tonnes purchased at 16,221 baht per tonne is 352Bn. I was under the impression that the maximum pledge was 15,000 per tonne for homali, and lower for other grades.

[billd766]

Well we should welcome the publication of something.... Even if there is speculation as to what is at cost and what is at market price etc. no doubt that will come out in the wash and the figure will be adjusted accordingly?

Just as important is the hidden costs of the scheme. I suspect these are not in the above figures. So I should imagine the Thai tax payer and any affected farmers (those allegedly not fully paid) will be asking the following questions:

How much rice, if any, was misappropriated or stolen?

How much rice has been written off as spoilt?

What is the cost of road haulage and other transportation or plant hire?

What is the cost or silo, warehouse, or shed storage?

What is the cost of security and policing?

Who were the main contractors for all of the above? Were these government contracts subject of a transparent bidding process. Are the same contracts still in place?

Will the NRC be appointing independent auditors to verify what they (the NRC) has just provisionally reported to the Thai people?

I think your imagination has runaway with you. It would be super nice if a body with a lot of weight behind it did ask all those questions - and kept asking them until they got some credible answers. However I think it more likely that there will be a massive shrugging of many shoulders and mutterings of SNAFU.

More like FUBAR

[aussiebebe]

There seems little point in speculating about losses incurred because the information released is likely to be a complete fabrication, and doubtless will remain so.

The losses seem to be very high. I read, albeit some time ago, that Thailand used to be the No 1 exporter of rice in the world, but that the value of the exports was only $1 billion. I remarked it because it seemed such a pitifully small amount (compared to the businesses I was managing). $1 billion is only about 30 billion baht, if my math is correct...so to lose 4 1/2 times the total value of your exports seems to be a tad reckless, or as you say, a fabrication.

some people are claiming that rice has been illegally imported to Thailand in order to be pledged as Thai rice.

[Thait Spot]

So let's get this right.

They brought 21.7M tonnes for 352Bn

They have 156Bn of rice left - although they don't say if this value is the purchase price or projected selling price. Let's figure it as the purchase price.

156Bn is 44.3% of 352Bn - meaning they sold 55.7% of the rice or approximately 12M tonnes for 59Bn - which by my calculations is about 4,900 Baht per tonne.

Is my maths incorrect here?

If my math is correct 21.7 million tonnes purchased at 16,221 baht per tonne is 352Bn. I was under the impression that the maximum pledge was 15,000 per tonne for homali, and lower for other grades.

20,000 for Hom Mali

15,000 for tamadar

It was supposed to be 15,000 for HM but Yingluck was playing pantomime with a PTP rally and made a mistake by saying 20,000 - the outcome is this......

[BlackJack]

bring in the accountants and spin doctors

then we will get the answer they want us to get

[GeorgeO]

Whatever figure they give it will be erroneous. Truth is they will never know how much money has been 'lost', and worse still, they won't care, as the losses won't be coming out of their personal pockets. A lot of people have got a lot richer out of this, but it's not the Farmers, it's the middle men.

There is certainly no question of anything coming OUT of their pockets, only what's going IN...!

[Robby nz]

I see there is a bit about it in the Wall Street Journal so the rest of the world is watching.

Incidentally the loss is in fact a LOSS not what has been paid out to the farmer but money that has gone forever and no matter how much of the rice they sell it can never be returned.

Consider how much good that could have done for the country, how many schools or hospitals could have been built, teachers or doctors trained.

The 136 billion is only for one year, even if that were to be all it is almost half of their flood relief budget.

But it is not all, there is still this year to be factored in and anyway no one knows, or if they do they aren't saying what it includes.

No one knows the condition of the rice in the middle of these huge piles but it isn't likely to be good, quite possibly unsaleable.

So the total loss could well be over 400 billion, billion for god sake, how does that compare with the countries annual budget?

[drdoom6996]

Any way you want to figure it, it is still a $uck-up.

[chainarong]

one must believe in the paranormal if this is the correct loss, the problem with this administration is their transparency is a little bit of a joke and it now wouldn't matter if they were correct no one would believe them , like Peter and the wolf , who the PTP would not have a clue about, they have cried wolf for too long.

[gabruce]

So let's get this right.

They brought 21.7M tonnes for 352Bn

They have 156Bn of rice left - although they don't say if this value is the purchase price or projected selling price. Let's figure it as the purchase price.

156Bn is 44.3% of 352Bn - meaning they sold 55.7% of the rice or approximately 12M tonnes for 59Bn - which by my calculations is about 4,900 Baht per tonne.

Is my maths incorrect here?

It seems correct. Hence, if they sell the rest of the rice from the 2011/2012 season at the same they will have a loss of around 260 billion baht. Of course it is possible that they will sell it at a lower price (or not at all). They could lose at most 293 billion, plus costs (storage, handling, paperwork etc). Sounds like the way I run my household here

[newermonkey]

I believe that the Moody's and other independent assessments will come to show the truth and losses will be close to the order of 260 Billion. I also wish a good journo or investigator would start looking closely at what Arisman's wife is up to and where the money is going.

We are all talking numbers here that lose any form of significance. 100 billion, 150 billion, 260 billion, we are discussing them so much we become desensitized as to actually how much that really is. To try and put in to perspective just how much has been 'lost', in the real world, the most expensive scientific research program going CERN in Switzerland (You all know it, the God particle - Higgs-Boson, that piece of astonishing engineering 100 meters below ground with a 27 KM circumference tunnel) the Large Hadron Collider, employs 4000 people and hosts up to 10 000 visiting scientists and cost 10 Billion dollars. The machine/project that has the whole world at the cutting edge of science and attracts scientists and grants from every country, cost 10 billion dollars. This Government just on rice pledging alone have lost in the order of 9 Billion Dollars. Think about that. That is a LOT of coin!

So it would be logic to say Arisman's wife should soon start construction of the second Hadron Collider in Udon to try and find the slime-bag partial?

NOT

Edited June 18, 2013 by newermonkey

[Traveling Sailor]

This is not a rice pledging scheme, it is a Rice Pledging SCAM!

[ramrod711]

He said the figure was concluded by the Finance Ministry’s accounting assessment sub-committee and reported to the National Rice Committee (NRC) yesterday.

Perhaps just another "white lie" to instill confidence in the economy.

[jbrain]

Technically the money is not lost if it is in a politicians bank account

So technically it is therefore missing, until we find out which politicians account!

I think someone spent the money on a Rolls Rice.

Edited June 18, 2013 by jbrain

[slapout]

I think what we are seeing with the multiple spokespeople, baht figures which do not match any paddy figures, unknown storage cost/losses, etc is the ultimate government boon doggle.

This cabinet has managed to involve at least 6 different government entities and a few private companies, in handling this program. There are numerous committees appointed along with the RTP on oversight duty. Throw in a couple cabinet shakeups , several spokespeople changes and you have created a game of plunder which has ultimate funding, no rules, officials, substitues, and even the players/participants are so confused they just wait for the next hemorage of money to come their way.

What is going to interesting is to see how these funds are moved, hidden, divided, and finally recycled to the benifit of those intended.

[belg]

better start to put all the stock into a loss, if only they would stop this tax payers money losing scam

[culicine]

Well we should welcome the publication of something.... Even if there is speculation as to what is at cost and what is at market price etc. no doubt that will come out in the wash and the figure will be adjusted accordingly?

Just as important is the hidden costs of the scheme. I suspect these are not in the above figures. So I should imagine the Thai tax payer and any affected farmers (those allegedly not fully paid) will be asking the following questions:

How much rice, if any, was misappropriated or stolen?

How much rice has been written off as spoilt?

What is the cost of road haulage and other transportation or plant hire?

What is the cost or silo, warehouse, or shed storage?

What is the cost of security and policing?

Who were the main contractors for all of the above? Were these government contracts subject of a transparent bidding process. Are the same contracts still in place?

Will the NRC be appointing independent auditors to verify what they (the NRC) has just provisionally reported to the Thai people?

Unfortunately, most Thais learn very young NOT to ask questions....a product of the education system to keep the poor masses in their place.

[SOTIRIOS]

....I suppose they used the same accounting procedures as of late.......

[ginjag]

Someone's loss is someone else's gain I suppose. If you buy rice at above the market price, you would expect to lose money, wouldn't you? I do hope some of the 136 billion found its way into small farmers' pockets. It sounds remarkably like the CAP in EU (Common Agricultural Policy) with its wine lakes and butter mountains. How do you raise farm incomes, I wonder, without paying over the odds?

IN channel 19-30. banks announced that FARMERS banking had risen this last year 200 billion. RUBI have you seen this today---interesting.

[paulmw]

Technically the money is not lost if it is in a politicians bank account

So technically it is therefore missing, until we find out which politicians account!

If I was Thai I would insist that the people I vote into office should be honest and transparent.

But there would be nobody left to vote for.

[MaiChai]

The number that matters is how much was spent: 352 billion baht is 11.4 billion dollars. Thats alot of money. Just 2011/12. Now you can use lots of accounting tricks to hide the loss; my feeling the losses are a much higher percentage, since most of it is sitting in warehouses.

[Thai at Heart]

So let's get this right.

They brought 21.7M tonnes for 352Bn

They have 156Bn of rice left - although they don't say if this value is the purchase price or projected selling price. Let's figure it as the purchase price.

156Bn is 44.3% of 352Bn - meaning they sold 55.7% of the rice or approximately 12M tonnes for 59Bn - which by my calculations is about 4,900 Baht per tonne.

Is my maths incorrect here?

If my math is correct 21.7 million tonnes purchased at 16,221 baht per tonne is 352Bn. I was under the impression that the maximum pledge was 15,000 per tonne for homali, and lower for other grades.

Hom Mali is 20k per rai and the most sought after.

In a normal year of 9mn kg export, hom Mali makes up 2mn tons. The rest is generic fragrant and standard rice.

So superior export quality is maybe 3mn tons maximum. The rest is just considered rice.

[rbrooks]

Well we should welcome the publication of something.... Even if there is speculation as to what is at cost and what is at market price etc. no doubt that will come out in the wash and the figure will be adjusted accordingly?

Just as important is the hidden costs of the scheme. I suspect these are not in the above figures. So I should imagine the Thai tax payer and any affected farmers (those allegedly not fully paid) will be asking the following questions:

How much rice, if any, was misappropriated or stolen?

How much rice has been written off as spoilt?

What is the cost of road haulage and other transportation or plant hire?

What is the cost or silo, warehouse, or shed storage?

What is the cost of security and policing?

Who were the main contractors for all of the above? Were these government contracts subject of a transparent bidding process. Are the same contracts still in place?

Will the NRC be appointing independent auditors to verify what they (the NRC) has just provisionally reported to the Thai people?

Why waste their time asking? Do you really believe they will get the truth? This is Thailand where truth and lies are really just blended together and part of culture and unfortunately the government.

[daboyz1]

I wonder what Thaksin has to say about all this? Surely he has an opinion. Maybe he'll just leave his sister hanging in the breeze.

Edited June 18, 2013 by daboyz1

[Jasun]

How long people start getting paid in rice? I think the politicians should be first.

[waza]

Someone's loss is someone else's gain I suppose. If you buy rice at above the market price, you would expect to lose money, wouldn't you? I do hope some of the 136 billion found its way into small farmers' pockets. It sounds remarkably like the CAP in EU (Common Agricultural Policy) with its wine lakes and butter mountains. How do you raise farm incomes, I wonder, without paying over the odds?

IN channel 19-30. banks announced that FARMERS banking had risen this last year 200 billion. RUBI have you seen this today---interesting.

That would be the new credit cards

[slapout]

Someone's loss is someone else's gain I suppose. If you buy rice at above the market price, you would expect to lose money, wouldn't you? I do hope some of the 136 billion found its way into small farmers' pockets. It sounds remarkably like the CAP in EU (Common Agricultural Policy) with its wine lakes and butter mountains. How do you raise farm incomes, I wonder, without paying over the odds?

IN channel 19-30. banks announced that FARMERS banking had risen this last year 200 billion. RUBI have you seen this today---interesting.

That would be the new credit cards

Agree with waza, plus the new cards are good for any purchase, not just for farm related items, which was the orginal intent/restriction. I could see no way to enforce or even police the latter case, with the perchance shown in this country, for manipulation of any system.

[iancnx]

Well we should welcome the publication of something.... Even if there is speculation as to what is at cost and what is at market price etc. no doubt that will come out in the wash and the figure will be adjusted accordingly?

Just as important is the hidden costs of the scheme. I suspect these are not in the above figures. So I should imagine the Thai tax payer and any affected farmers (those allegedly not fully paid) will be asking the following questions:

How much rice, if any, was misappropriated or stolen?

How much rice has been written off as spoilt?

What is the cost of road haulage and other transportation or plant hire?

What is the cost or silo, warehouse, or shed storage?

What is the cost of security and policing?

Who were the main contractors for all of the above? Were these government contracts subject of a transparent bidding process. Are the same contracts still in place?

Will the NRC be appointing independent auditors to verify what they (the NRC) has just provisionally reported to the Thai people?

Why waste their time asking? Do you really believe they will get the truth? This is Thailand where truth and lies are really just blended together and part of culture and unfortunately the government.

Because I believe that the only way to change the current mindset of Thai politicians generally is to challenge them with awkward questions and hold them to account public ally. They bang the drum about democracy, now they need to step up to the plate. Silence by the electorate will change nothing...... And I abhor violent means; this post advocates peaceful demonstration, debate, and freedom of speech leading to a fully informed electorate and an accountable government. Even if we get a l

Small part of the above it is a start!

[notmyself]

I believe that the Moody's and other independent assessments will come to show the truth and losses will be close to the order of 260 Billion. I also wish a good journo or investigator would start looking closely at what Arisman's wife is up to and where the money is going.

We are all talking numbers here that lose any form of significance. 100 billion, 150 billion, 260 billion, we are discussing them so much we become desensitized as to actually how much that really is. To try and put in to perspective just how much has been 'lost', in the real world, the most expensive scientific research program going CERN in Switzerland (You all know it, the God particle - Higgs-Boson, that piece of astonishing engineering 100 meters below ground with a 27 KM circumference tunnel) the Large Hadron Collider, employs 4000 people and hosts up to 10 000 visiting scientists and cost 10 Billion dollars. The machine/project that has the whole world at the cutting edge of science and attracts scientists and grants from every country, cost 10 billion dollars. This Government just on rice pledging alone have lost in the order of 9 Billion Dollars. Think about that. That is a LOT of coin!

I've posted along the same lines a number of time but rather than monitory aspect I have looked at the tonnage and or volume. You cannot move millions of tonnes in such a way as it would seem like a ship passing in the night.

[notmyself]

The number that matters is how much was spent: 352 billion baht is 11.4 billion dollars. Thats alot of money. Just 2011/12. Now you can use lots of accounting tricks to hide the loss; my feeling the losses are a much higher percentage, since most of it is sitting in warehouses.

And if it not still sitting in warehouses then why the need for more storage space?