Nationwide rice stocks to be inspected for missing 2.5m tons from Thai govt stockpiles

[webfact]

Public, private agencies to check rice stocks nationwide
By English News



BANGKOK, June 26 – Joint public-private rice scrutiny agencies will inspect rice mills and warehouses nationwide tomorrow amid the latest report of more than 2.5 million tonnes of grains missing from government stockpiles.

National Police chief Adul Saengsingkaew met with officials from four ministries – commerce, agriculture, finance and interior – as well as the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) to discuss preparing for the rice checks after the discovery of widespread thefts.

Representatives from 19 private companies will join the investigation.

Pol Gen Adul also set up a special centre at the National Police Bureau to receive rice-related information throughout the country, adding that more than 16,000 police nationwide will assist in the operation.

In the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum, officials found that more than 6,200 tonnes of rice were stolen from a warehouse in an unscrupulous rice transfer.

The governor of Chaiyaphum has instructed the Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) to take urgent legal action against the rice miller who could be charged with embezzling.

Officials said documents carrying counterfeit signatures of PWO officials were produced to the authorities before the rice was transported from the warehouse.

A similar case of rice theft was found in Phichit province on the weekend.

Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the government’s rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2013-06-26

[sjjmmi]

No end to this scam

[bigbamboo]

I'm waiting for the next government statement saying that all this missing rice is proof that stocks are much lower than their critics claim!

Edited June 26, 2013 by bigbamboo

[Chao Lao Beach]

Did it ever exist in the first place, except on an invoice to the Gov for some new sports cars?

Phase 2 is compensation for missing and rotten rice

Edited June 26, 2013 by Chao Lao Beach

[Tywais]

Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the government’s rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night.

Wonder if the rice had found a new home before the fire?

[BookMan]

The mice did it, Officer!

[Thai at Heart]

Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the governments rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night.

Wonder if the rice had found a new home before the fire?

Composting fire?

So the score is 8k tons plus 6.5k tons and counting. A long way to go to reach 2.5 mn.

This will be a lot of fun. Old mother Hubbard will be turning in her grave.

[Unkomoncents]

What a spectacular way to save face! Now the bad rice has been "stolen" from government stockpiles, I'm sure there are no problems in the Thai rice pledging scheme.

[Thai at Heart]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

[pb1936]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

So that makes 125,000 truck loads !!! Just hilarious.

[spirit47]

They will find the farang, who do this...16.000 hungry Policemen, no chance for the robbers...

The dirt on the rice bags look like fungi...

In Ayutthaya, fried rice must be very cheap in the moment, if there was rice in the warehouse.

Time to clean my brain...

[soi41]

The only thing missing now, is the classic picture with the police brass pointing fingers at Somchai, the truckdriver. "He did it!"

Quite ironic that one bunch of thieves (government) are outsmarted by another bunch of criminals (govenors, local "businessmen" and millers).

Sad thing is, they will all get away with it!

[Thaddeus]

Being frustrated at all the pointing fingers and being forced to admit a crime it didn't commit, 2.5m tonnes of rice fled the scene.

[worgeordie]

Is David Copperfield in Thailand at the moment,

or maybe just taken to another warehouse and

pledged again @15K bht a ton.

regards Worgeordie

[rubl]

"Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the governments rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night."

Did this happen before or after the nationwide inspection tour?

BTW a week ago we had "the government spent Bt352 billion to buy 21.7 million tonnes of rice in the 2011/2012 crop while Bt156 billion worth of rice remains in the stockpiles and the sold volume was Bt59 billion, leaving net losses of Bt136.908 billion." Is the missing 2.5m tonnes from 2011/2012 or from various periods? If a part is from 2011/2012 it will be included in amount remaining (as is wasn't known to be lost before), therefore the amount remaining might need to be lowered down to 131 billion with loss of 162 billion. Surely farmers will understand we have to cut costs somewhere.

[NeverSure]

"Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the governments rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night."

Did this happen before or after the nationwide inspection tour?

BTW a week ago we had "the government spent Bt352 billion to buy 21.7 million tonnes of rice in the 2011/2012 crop while Bt156 billion worth of rice remains in the stockpiles and the sold volume was Bt59 billion, leaving net losses of Bt136.908 billion." Is the missing 2.5m tonnes from 2011/2012 or from various periods? If a part is from 2011/2012 it will be included in amount remaining (as is wasn't known to be lost before), therefore the amount remaining might need to be lowered down to 131 billion with loss of 162 billion. Surely farmers will understand we have to cut costs somewhere.

OK, All of this rice has been paid for with money borrowed from the "revolving fund" at the government owned Agricultural Bank.

So, if they find rice missing, do they write off the loss at the Ag Bank, considering that the rice is the collateral for the loan? Any reasonable banking practice say yes, they do.

That bank has just 100 billion baht of its own capital. The loss has to either be paid immediately by the government which has no money, or paid from the Ag Bank's capital which will absolutely break that bank.

[A Member]

I wonder if we will get the usual Thai scenario in that the missing rice will only be " found " or not depending on whose rice mill or warehouse it's located in ?

[Thai at Heart]

"Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the governments rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night."

Did this happen before or after the nationwide inspection tour?

BTW a week ago we had "the government spent Bt352 billion to buy 21.7 million tonnes of rice in the 2011/2012 crop while Bt156 billion worth of rice remains in the stockpiles and the sold volume was Bt59 billion, leaving net losses of Bt136.908 billion." Is the missing 2.5m tonnes from 2011/2012 or from various periods? If a part is from 2011/2012 it will be included in amount remaining (as is wasn't known to be lost before), therefore the amount remaining might need to be lowered down to 131 billion with loss of 162 billion. Surely farmers will understand we have to cut costs somewhere.

OK, All of this rice has been paid for with money borrowed from the "revolving fund" at the government owned Agricultural Bank.

So, if they find rice missing, do they write off the loss at the Ag Bank, considering that the rice is the collateral for the loan? Any reasonable banking practice say yes, they do.

That bank has just 100 billion baht of its own capital. The loss has to either be paid immediately by the government which has no money, or paid from the Ag Bank's capital which will absolutely break that bank.

Presumably that would need some kind of police report to attest to the fact it's been nicked. At the moment, it is merely missing or misplaced and there is no accusation that anyone has done anything wrong.

[rubl]

2.5m tonnes missing, mislayed. Probably just inadequate administration. A few billion Baht computer system and some bits of software required to improve. Obviously the spreadsheet used on a Windows95 PC is no longer up to it with numbers having moved into the billion range.

Of course too early to accuse anyone from having done something wrong. Still government project, big loss, government did something wrong.

[Gsxrnz]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

The trucks might be rated at 20 tonnes capacity but TIT - they would easily have got 30 tonnes on.

Anyway I'm sure it's all just a simple accounting error - some lowly typist put the decimal point in the wrong place on an official document and the authorities will ultimately discover that they now have 10% MORE than they thought they did, they've been chasing a red-herring, and all is well with the world. That assumed loss has just become a huge profit, allowing for even more "losses" to occur - Oh how I love the vagaries of government accounting.

I wonder if "red-herring" translates to Thai. I'm sure the irony would be lost in the translation anyway.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Gsxrnz

[hanuman2543]

This is just the beginning

[Thai at Heart]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

The trucks might be rated at 20 tonnes capacity but TIT - they would easily have got 30 tonnes on.

Of course, this more than 100k truck loads wasn't conducted by, or noticed by ANYONE who noticed or possibly thought that it may have been illegal.

This is what I always find amazing about these scams, is that they really do have to involve hundreds if not thousands of people, but there is not one single person willing to shop anyone.

[Gsxrnz]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

The trucks might be rated at 20 tonnes capacity but TIT - they would easily have got 30 tonnes on.

Of course, this more than 100k truck loads wasn't conducted by, or noticed by ANYONE who noticed or possibly thought that it may have been illegal.

This is what I always find amazing about these scams, is that they really do have to involve hundreds if not thousands of people, but there is not one single person willing to shop anyone.

And a huge proportion would/could have been done on pick-up trucks as well, so the number of loads quadruples.

However, I suspect that the missing rice never actually existed anyway. The whole scam is based on paperwork to allow the money to flow, so fictitious numbers were created to inflate the real inventory. Now that the spotlight is on and a physical count will reveal millions of tonnes of "missing inventory", it has been deemed that the only way to explain the alleged missing stock is to claim it was stolen.

Let's face it, it is a major logistical exercise to organise 125,000 shipments of product, storing that stolen product and/or selling or exporting it. Either every logistics company in the Kingdom was involved.......or it never really happened anyway.

Kindergarten 101.

[colin2]

The mice did it, Officer!

And the Lats.

[tomross46]

Meanwhile a rice warehouse under the government’s rice pledging programme in Ayutthaya province caught fire and burned on Monday night. (MCOT online news)

This has nothing to with money laundering, or the old shell game. This same scam has been going on for years, documents stating rice was delivered to the warehouse, but when an inventory is done large amounts are mission. This is corrupt government officials and politicians. I will bet my new pink Bentley that no one is found guilty.

[Nickymaster]

What a joke. We all know that even if they would catch people who have stolen the rice, the case will be forwarded to the DSI who will make a lot of noise the first few weeks and then it will be dragged out en eventually will be forgotten..

[Nickymaster]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

So that makes 125,000 truck loads !!! Just hilarious.

All this rice is not stolen, it never was delivered to the warehouses in the first place! The traders just claimed money from the government without ever having received the rice from the farmers let alone paid the farmers.

So in short, the traders received 15,000THB/mt + storage cost.

So the big question remains, how much did the Shin clan get from the traders. Think about it.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Nickymaster

[winstonc]

After the discovery of wide spread thefts.

2.5mn tonnes at 20 tonnes a truck and they Just noticed that 10% of the stock walked out the back door?

Oh yes. This is going to be fun to watch them squirm on this one.

So that makes 125,000 truck loads !!! Just hilarious.

All this rice is not stolen, it never was delivered to the warehouses in the first place! The traders just claimed money from the government without ever having received the rice from the farmers let alone paid the farmers.

So in short, the traders received 15,000THB/mt + storage cost.

So the big question remains, how much did the Shin clan get from the traders. Think about it.

yep im with you on this one,it never existed i think,there was no rice in the first place,,i cant think of any other answer,,anyone,,???,are the farmers in on it too,,,,?? the plot thickens,,

[kimamey]

The mice did it, Officer!

And the Lats.

"Lats"?

I was thinking you meant rats but surely you can't make a mistake in 3 words.

Oh hang on I see it now. Nice one.

Edited June 26, 2013 by kimamey

[kimamey]

Pol Gen Adul also set up a special centre at the National Police Bureau to receive rice-related information throughout the country, adding that more than 16,000 police nationwide will assist in the operation.

Weren't the police put in charge of overseeing the rice scheme at the warehouses a while back to prevent corruption. Maybe they forgot to tell them to look out for theft as well.