Imagine us trying that at the bank. No really i can pay it back. Just give me the money. Don t it make my brown eyes blue.

Have all the rice farmers been paid in full?? We haven't heard much from them in the last week or so...

All the farmers in my wifes village are still waiting to be paid for septembers rice.

Meanwhile our local BACC continues to have fortnightly morlum parties for its staff.

Dont think you can really blame the bank, even though they are a Govt bank they are governed by banking law and are only acting as an agent for the govt in this, therefore can only pay out the money that is given to them by the commerce or finance ministry.

They are being paid a commission for the job of handling the rice scheme money as would happen with any agent in this situation. A good earner for them.

They have also set up the donations and term deposit accounts to help the farmers which looks to be the banks own idea.

The real problem is that no money was budgeted to pay the farmers.

This should not have been that difficult as it was known how much rice had been pledged and therefore how much had to be paid.

Instead the thinking seemed to be that as soon as they got the 2,2 trillion they would use some of that off budget money to pay the farmers and other debts and of course being off budget it would all be hidden.

This would appear to have been confirmed by a statement way back that borrowing to continue the scheme would be from 'infrastructure funding'