Warehouse filled with rotten rice in Nakhon Si Thammarat

[Stradavarius37]

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A less flattering view of this warehouse from a Thai link.

The PTP said there was no rotten rice and the embarrassing thing is people believed it. I pity those people.

Very very sad. It looks like it has been deliberately vandalised to help it to catch fire. Chinese lightning. A very common problem.

Deny, misdirect, obfuscate, A very common TV Red problem...

[Stradavarius37]

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The scam is that the goverment said the rice was all good an not missing. They were so arrogant that they would not admit the problems and rectify them. By admitting storage was bad they might had to stop the program and they did not want that. So the blew even more taxpayer money. So they are guilty of gross negligence.

You do understand that not a single soul in the world ever beleived for one second that the rice wouldn't get any worse because it had been stored for a year or two. Every buyer in the world knows that the stuff reduces in quality and some of it will inevitably go mouldy. There was no way on earth to build enough space to be able to manage storing all this stuff and it would have been a crazy expense to do so. Basically, you would need at least 40% vacant space sitting around in order to be able to move the stuff around. All the buildings are full to bursting point.

So, ok, now it is gross negligence, not a scam. A scam would imply they got paid in some way.

"So was any of it nicked?" Maybe, maybe not. You correctly stated, rice is expected to deteriorate if stored long enough - so, then why was the rice stored so long? Why was the rice not sold earlier, apart from being the result of gross negligence and stupidity, which in itself should be roundly condemned, and suitable punishment be metered out.

Scams can not be completely ruled out in this instance. Perhaps the stocks were replaced with poor quality/old rice at some time? Perhaps the rice was initially/always inferior? Perhaps the Warehouse was benefiting from storage fees? Hopefully the truth will out.

Why wasn't it sold earlier?

Because that would have made the paper loss real. The whole point of it was to stockpile it and shorten the supply globally.

None of what you see here today in this report suggests any of it was stolen or anyone got enriched illegally from the process.

Rice was put in a warehouse, the door was closed and it went to crap. Maybe some was stolen, maybe some wasn't, then some people tried to burn it to hide something.

Does it make a big hole in the apparently 3mn tonnes that people believe has been nicked or misaccounted? No.

Does it suggest Yingluck and her head people personally got paid? No.

So. Yes, its a crappy messy warehouse. Get used to it. There are gojng to be many more. I want them to start finding 100s of thousands of tonnes of missing product every day.

This is once again a non story in terms of finding real fraud.

A true believer! Wow! Hold on tight to your wallets folks!

[rametindallas]

The scam is that the goverment said the rice was all good an not missing. They were so arrogant that they would not admit the problems and rectify them. By admitting storage was bad they might had to stop the program and they did not want that. So the blew even more taxpayer money. So they are guilty of gross negligence.

You do understand that not a single soul in the world ever beleived for one second that the rice wouldn't get any worse because it had been stored for a year or two. Every buyer in the world knows that the stuff reduces in quality and some of it will inevitably go mouldy. There was no way on earth to build enough space to be able to manage storing all this stuff and it would have been a crazy expense to do so. Basically, you would need at least 40% vacant space sitting around in order to be able to move the stuff around. All the buildings are full to bursting point.

So, ok, now it is gross negligence, not a scam. A scam would imply they got paid in some way.

The scam comes in when someone (connected to the powers-that-be) has an old, crappy warehouse that nobody, but a corrupt government, would rent space in. The government pays them top rent (so there is adequate money for a nice kick-back) to store rice in a haphazard way that maybe covers up the quality not being up to what was paid for (this is where they stored the rice that was already spoiled before it was sold as good). Sorry you can't/don't/won't see the potential for corruption. Corrupt money was made through kick-backs on storage costs and paying for higher quality rice than was delivered. I had the impression, from reading your posts, that your are above average intelligence. Don't prove me wrong.

[Ricardo]

They called an election and the extra budgets couldn't be released. Is it that hard to understand.

It would have been virtually impossible for the system to be self funding. They were paying and costing more than twice the market price for the product. So every kg they sold only funded 500gs of farmer product.

On this rice thing, u do realise that someone who wanted to criminally enrich themselves with rice purchases would not have done it the way they did. I bet they never find any proof of those at the top getting paid over this.

They aren't that smart, and also they aren't that stupid.

"I bet they never find any proof of those at the top getting paid over this."

Perhaps because the real big money might well have been made offshore, by 'third hands' speculating in rice-futures in places like the Middle-East, with insider-knowledge of the true position as to Thai rice-stocks & sales, or the prices the fabled & oft-repeated G2G-sales were made at ?

But there were clearly plenty of smaller crumbs for their local little-helpers & supporters, milling or building cheap-warehousing, shuffling the records & having insurance-fires, playing spot-the-lady with the stocks of better-quality rice, and so on.

One can only hope that at-least some of the guilty will be named-and-shamed now, and that prosecutions will ensue, mere transfers to inactive-positions simply doesn't suffice to deter these people ripping-off the taxpayers with this joke of a scheme. And the committee responsible, and its absent-chairwoman, were also very clearly negligent !

[rametindallas]

I'm wondering can this rice be used for anything at this point?

It will make excellent alcohol fuel. Considering the amount of rice that will not be sold before it goes bad, which will most likely be in the millions of tons, an investment in a alcohol fuel plant would seem to be prudent.

[pedro01]

The unraveling of the rice scam continues..... Smart posters on TV knew it was a scam

all along, but it is certainly interesting to get an inside look at it. I also look forward to the

arrests starting as well. The red shirt spin should be interesting as the scope of the scam gets

larger and larger. Perhaps the military planted the rotten rice there ? Also Images like the one

in this story are doing incalculable damage to the reputation of Thai rice on the world

market.

So was any of it nicked?

At this point nobody knows. This rice audit is going to be done in about a month.

I think it will be a combination of invoicing for phantom bags of rice, and poor grade

rice being substituted for high grade rice. The rotting rice in the warehouses is just

an outgrowth of the general scam, where they have to put the rice somewhere. The mills

were making a pretty satang off of the storage costs. Seem to remember

that within a fairly brief period of time, the storage costs would exceed the value of the

rice.

So, OK. Whilst everyone is running around screaming scam, I am a little lost quite how anyone would profit from a pile of rice going mouldy.

That's OK. Of course letting it go mouldy instead of selling it has to be a scam????????huh?

They make money each month from storing the rice, despite the fact they were unable to.

Wonder how they got the contract???

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[rametindallas]

But, but, but Thaskin....

Seriously "Thai at Heart", your problem is you put too much sense in your post.

For brainwashed/stupid/daft people is very hard to follow your logic.

They are just left shouting over and over, this silly argument :"its a scam"

Pay attention to the news. The scam part is NOT that the government overpaid

for the rice. That was expected as this scheme was a subsidy. And had everything

been above board, perhaps the losses would have been withstand-able. The scam

aspect will be come clearer when it turns out there are millions of tons of rice missing.

The rice brought in from Cambodia, and lesser quality rice substituted for high

quality rice are simply other components of the scam.

That photo of the rotting rice in the warehouse by DJjamie is astonishing . Clearly there was not

the slightest thought the rice would be sold later. Pretty sure the storage owners

thought the Thaksin clan would be in power forever, and an audit would never come

to pass. So just fling in bags of rice and let them rot....... Meanwhile keep billing

the government............

On a side note, I wonder what the odds are of a single warehouse filled full of damp rice

catch on fire three times. I am going to guess pretty small.... :-) Chinese / Thai lightning !!

Exactly. If they find millions missing that is where the scam will come. As yet they have less than 100,000 Mt. The rumour is apparently 3,000,000 tonnes.

A figure that big should be quite easy to find and since they have checked quite a few places it should become even more evident when it is discovered.

Let's not forget guys, 3,000,000 TONNES of rice is a pile of stuff none of us has ever seen or comprehended. I managed a company with 10,000 tons of stuff with a similar density . we needed huge warehouses covering hundreds of rai.

Millions of TONNES missing should be easy to find. But so far, nothing like a significant amount missing. In 19,000,000 TONNES 5% loss for mould is nearly 1,000,000 tonnes.

That will be a minimum of natural loss without anyone doing anything wrong at all.

Millions of tons could be missing because they never existed! The government colluded with millers to defraud the public and split the taxpayers' rice fund money that was paid to the millers for rice that never existed. They may have paid farmers a small fee for rice they didn't even grow to cover the paper trail. (note: next, investigate how much each farmer sold and see if he had the capacity to grow that much rice) This program was designed, from the ground up, to be a master fraud; conceived by a master fraudster.

Why are you so committed to making excuses for Thaksin's puppet government? Post after post of PTP's 'innocent' actions being demonized by the rest of us. I don't understand your motives.

Edited July 9, 2014 by rametindallas

[BSJ]

The devil maybe in the detail of the storage contract regarding who was responsible for providing pest control and periodic inspections. Before we line up the warehouse owners for some prison time we need to be clear on the details.

Scam, dishonesty, lies, fraud, corruption can all be used when discussing this blight on the Thai people.

[rametindallas]

Cue the Red TV apologists like Mango Bob to explain that it is all a misunderstanding....

I am no supporter of either side. In the big scheme of things the difficulties in Thailand over the years are nothing but a very small footnote in history. What irks me more than anything is newspaper reports such as this (which contain but a fragment of information and no investigation whatsoever) being used to support the argument against the the Yingluck government. It is just troublesome when reports like this are taken to support one side or another. There is absolutely no information in the article on which to base any conclusion. Do the three fires have any relation to the damaged rice? Was the rice in the warehouse at the time of the fires. Did the the person/business responsible for warehousing the rice not fulfill their contract properly. Was there fraud of some kind? Why use such reports from such poor reporting to justify anything? It all raises more questions than it answers and the group of TV posters ready and willing to jump on any report no matter how little information it contains to support their argument (one way or another) is really quite troublesome if one is reaching conclusion from such reporting. There seems to be little depth of thought here on TV at all.

I would suggest that if one wants to read what I consider a fairly balanced article entitled "The Story of Thaksin Shinawatra" (by Richard Lloyd Parry in the London Review of Books 19 Jun 2014) they should do so. I think that the author gives a fairly balanced view of the the goings on in Thailand over the last 8 years. It is short and reasonably concise as to the author's take on things and seems to take shots at everyone. You may or may not agree but it does, in a limited way, address all the players actions. It is no thesis by any means but is interesting reading nonetheless.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n12/richard-lloydparry/the-story-of-thaksin-shinawatra

I am no supporter of either side.

Misdirection, much?

For someone who is no supporter of either side, you always try to defend Thaksin's side.

It is inconceivable that anyone who knows anything about the situation in Thailand could be neutral on such a polarizing figure as Thaksin Shinawatra. Your entire post loses credibility with your first sentence.

Maybe we should all read more balanced articles on Ferdinand Marcos, Pol Pot, and Robert Mugabe, hmmm?

[Robby nz]

There are also transport related opportunities for scams, for instance it has been reported that a transport company belonging to a deputy minister of commerce has been carting rice around.

Then there were the dodgy to non existent G 2 G deals where a company in which a red leader and his PT MP wife were involved was said to have been the go-between.

And of course the gent who has already been convicted regarding the non delivery of rice to Iran. He was ordered to pay back something like 200 million Baht, but where did the rice go?

Regards N Si T, how will they ever be able to tell what (how many tons) is in that warehouse ?

What with it scattered all over the show, three fires, what was destroyed in them, dumped or how much has been spirited away.

Impossible to tell how much is actually missing.

And how many more warehouses will the find like that ?

We have been told that there have been fires in at least 20 warehouses.

There was a report a while back of a warehouse in Lop buri where a wall had collapsed (with photo), was also said to have had a fire there.

I suspect it will be impossible to quantify exactly how much is missing. Although how do you define "Missing" ?

I suppose it depends what you want to portray, missing can be anything from : Taken out and dumped because of damage from fire, flood, pests.

Lost in fire.

Damaged in transit.

False invoicing, never existed in the first place.

Feel free to add to list.

Or it can mean simply stolen. And that will be how Yingluck and her supporters will want to have it seen, then she and they,can say "See I was right it is not missing (stolen)"

Then the more practical ones will say, "Hay its not there, its gone, its missing" Regardless of how it went its still missing.

[Paulzed]

Bags of Rice is not the only thing that is rotten in Nakhon Si Thammarat

[kerrysum]

What a shame, and what are they going to do about it? I wouldn't even feed this slop to the pigs....

Thailand, you have forgotten where you have come from.... You let the rice mold and rot, it affects the market worldwide. What are you thinking? So much waste on the backs of the Farmers and growers? I go to stores here in America, and the sellers apologize. None of them can tell me from what year, it was harvested. So now I do now buy it. I worked your farms as a farang, and yet I see something so wrong. Remember the new crop?

You wanted the shortage and yes you got it. In your ways, it is not in good sight from my eyes. You backed up the stock pile to create what? For what? And for what reason? the farmers only wanted to see some profit. But I guess the egos that exist, wanted different? Now you have it. Am I mad? No just disappointed.

Never again...... kilosierra

[englishoak]

Wow rotten moudly and or missing rice. Theres a revelation

Robbie the guy involved with Iran was a long long time ago, not related to current scam scheme.

Could it just be, just maybe the millers and rice handlers and anyone in the rice storing trade has been selling rice out the back door and tweaking invents and lining their pockets for years and years going back decades ? Whatever government was in charge at any time you can bet it was just another form of accepted tea money and perk and all part of business as usual here. Least thats what I was told years back from a very well off black market trader/supplier, I find it totally believable and unsurprising.

Lots of people will have been making good sideline money whether the gov was involved or not, I doubt very much there is any real interest in holding to account those who actually have been first hand ferreting the rice away.

Its a bit like the slave labour thing, no one wants to open pandoras box and embarrass the dozens if not hundreds or more involved by name not merely those in PTP. They might name others and that may well be a very dangerous thing to do given the current climate.

Think about it.

[rubl]

Wow rotten moudly and or missing rice. Theres a revelation

Robbie the guy involved with Iran was a long long time ago, not related to current scam scheme.

Could it just be, just maybe the millers and rice handlers and anyone in the rice storing trade has been selling rice out the back door and tweaking invents and lining their pockets for years and years going back decades ? Whatever government was in charge at any time you can bet it was just another form of accepted tea money and perk and all part of business as usual here. Least thats what I was told years back from a very well off black market trader/supplier, I find it totally believable and unsurprising.

Lots of people will have been making good sideline money whether the gov was involved or not, I doubt very much there is any real interest in holding to account those who actually have been first hand ferreting the rice away.

Its a bit like the slave labour thing, no one wants to open pandoras box and embarrass the dozens if not hundreds or more involved by name not merely those in PTP. They might name others and that may well be a very dangerous thing to do given the current climate.

Think about it.

While thinking about it, we'll also continue the current investigation which would allow a more accurate and detailed accounting on the RPPS and it's costs and may also give reliable details on rice still in store from 2010, 2009, 2008 and so on.

Edited July 9, 2014 by rubl

[Rimbuman]

These greedy bastards sure tricked Yingluck. She should have been out every day inspecting rice silos instead of wasting her time hanging around in Bangkok trying to run the country.

Exactly, the poor girl had nothing to with it sounds like a statement from an old sailor from a bar stool in the Pink Pussy Bar.

[Rimbuman]

Cue the Red TV apologists like Mango Bob to explain that it is all a misunderstanding....

I am no supporter of either side. In the big scheme of things the difficulties in Thailand over the years are nothing but a very small footnote in history. What irks me more than anything is newspaper reports such as this (which contain but a fragment of information and no investigation whatsoever) being used to support the argument against the the Yingluck government. It is just troublesome when reports like this are taken to support one side or another. There is absolutely no information in the article on which to base any conclusion. Do the three fires have any relation to the damaged rice? Was the rice in the warehouse at the time of the fires. Did the the person/business responsible for warehousing the rice not fulfill their contract properly. Was there fraud of some kind? Why use such reports from such poor reporting to justify anything? It all raises more questions than it answers and the group of TV posters ready and willing to jump on any report no matter how little information it contains to support their argument (one way or another) is really quite troublesome if one is reaching conclusion from such reporting. There seems to be little depth of thought here on TV at all.

I would suggest that if one wants to read what I consider a fairly balanced article entitled "The Story of Thaksin Shinawatra" (by Richard Lloyd Parry in the London Review of Books 19 Jun 2014) they should do so. I think that the author gives a fairly balanced view of the the goings on in Thailand over the last 8 years. It is short and reasonably concise as to the author's take on things and seems to take shots at everyone. You may or may not agree but it does, in a limited way, address all the players actions. It is no thesis by any means but is interesting reading nonetheless.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n12/richard-lloydparry/the-story-of-thaksin-shinawatra

I am no supporter of either side.

Misdirection, much?

For someone who is no supporter of either side, you always try to defend Thaksin's side.

It is inconceivable that anyone who knows anything about the situation in Thailand could be neutral on such a polarizing figure as Thaksin Shinawatra. Your entire post loses credibility with your first sentence.

Maybe we should all read more balanced articles on Ferdinand Marcos, Pol Pot, and Robert Mugabe, hmmm?

You can see the color shirt he's wearing, he's only trying to be subtle about I guess.

[iReason]

They never mention the giant rats in these stories...

[boomerangutang]

"deputy superintendent of Kapang police station, said that the warehouse was struck by fire three times on March 4, 2011, February 21 and April 5 this year.

However, he ruled out arson saying that the fires might have been caused by aluminium phosphate interacting with relative humidity."

<DELETED>K me. These police are chemical experts in Thailand. Whoa! No evidence left then, apart from a pile of shit?

Let me guess, just before the fires (which almost certainly were arson - for covering up the problems we're hearing about now) - the warehouse owners got insurance, or upped their insurance to the highest level.

Getting fire insurance for a biz is not as common, in Thailand, as some farang might expect. A large department store burned down here in C.Rai, a few yrs ago, and owner had no insurance.

[billd766]

These greedy bastards sure tricked Yingluck. She should have been out every day inspecting rice silos instead of wasting her time hanging around in Bangkok trying to run the country.

When did she ever try to run the country. That was already contracted out to Thaksin and his toadies.

[billd766]

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A less flattering view of this warehouse from a Thai link.

The PTP said there was no rotten rice and the embarrassing thing is people believed it. I pity those people.

Very very sad. It looks like it has been deliberately vandalised to help it to catch fire. Chinese lightning. A very common problem.

Deny, misdirect, obfuscate, A very common TV Red problem...

No likes left. Please take this instead.

[Thai at Heart]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

A less flattering view of this warehouse from a Thai link.

The PTP said there was no rotten rice and the embarrassing thing is people believed it. I pity those people.

Very very sad. It looks like it has been deliberately vandalised to help it to catch fire. Chinese lightning. A very common problem.

Deny, misdirect, obfuscate, A very common TV Red problem...

No likes left. Please take this instead.

I just hope you lot don't get too disappointed when the actual theft is much smaller than the hope, and that there is zero proof Yingluck herself got a baht. Edited July 9, 2014 by Thai at Heart

[NeverSure]

Warehouse filled with rotten rice in Nakhon Si Thammarat

The heading in my view should actually read

. ''Last administration filled with rotten ministers, politicians, state officials and police. Some of whom are belived to have ben acting under orders from abroad for personal, business, filial and financial gains.

Somewhere in that paragraph, surely you could fit the word "rats."

[NeverSure]

What a shame, and what are they going to do about it? I wouldn't even feed this slop to the pigs....

Thailand, you have forgotten where you have come from.... You let the rice mold and rot, it affects the market worldwide. What are you thinking? So much waste on the backs of the Farmers and growers? I go to stores here in America, and the sellers apologize. None of them can tell me from what year, it was harvested. So now I do now buy it. I worked your farms as a farang, and yet I see something so wrong. Remember the new crop?

You wanted the shortage and yes you got it. In your ways, it is not in good sight from my eyes. You backed up the stock pile to create what? For what? And for what reason? the farmers only wanted to see some profit. But I guess the egos that exist, wanted different? Now you have it. Am I mad? No just disappointed.

Never again...... kilosierra

Buy American rice, even if you buy it on the internet. It is very regional so it might not be grown near you.

America is the 12th largest rice producer in the world, even though rice isn't a very profitable crop. In particular it is grown in the swampy delta of the Sacramento River, and around the swamps in Louisiana. Link

[EyesWideOpen]

These greedy bastards sure tricked Yingluck. She should have been out every day inspecting rice silos instead of wasting her time hanging around in Bangkok trying to run the country.

When did she ever try to run the country. That was already contracted out to Thaksin and his toadies.

Bada bing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Robby nz]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Deny, misdirect, obfuscate, A very common TV Red problem...

No likes left. Please take this instead.

I just hope you lot don't get too disappointed when the actual theft is much smaller than the hope, and that there is zero proof Yingluck herself got a baht.

You are going to get it through your head eventually that 'missing' does not just mean stolen.

Any rice that is supposed to be there and is not is 'missing', regardless as to how it went missing.

Those who have been talking all along about "missing rice", including the lady who was fired, have never said all or even any of the missing rice was stolen only that it is missing, as in gone from where it should be..

You are the only one going on about theft and Yingluck not getting any money from the fact that rice is missing, whether she did or not does not matter the rice is still missing.

And in some cases there has been deliberate attempts to hide that fact, one blatant attempt was what you called the best and strongest scaffold you have seen in Thailand.

[metisdead]

A post containing copyrighted photo from Bangkok Post has been removed as well as a reply. Posts with messed up quotes have been removed.

[Baerboxer]

The scam is that the goverment said the rice was all good an not missing. They were so arrogant that they would not admit the problems and rectify them. By admitting storage was bad they might had to stop the program and they did not want that. So the blew even more taxpayer money. So they are guilty of gross negligence.

You do understand that not a single soul in the world ever beleived for one second that the rice wouldn't get any worse because it had been stored for a year or two. Every buyer in the world knows that the stuff reduces in quality and some of it will inevitably go mouldy. There was no way on earth to build enough space to be able to manage storing all this stuff and it would have been a crazy expense to do so. Basically, you would need at least 40% vacant space sitting around in order to be able to move the stuff around. All the buildings are full to bursting point.

So, ok, now it is gross negligence, not a scam. A scam would imply they got paid in some way.

Either you like playing devil's advocate or stringing a thread out for amusement or are genuinely a Thaksin supporter. Who knows?

Yingluck and various of her ministries and representatives have for many months being saying there was no problems. All the rice stocks were there and ready for sale. She has never been able or willing to provide detailed accounts - purchase costs, operations cost, sales revenues or details of losses/gains.

During this period she and several of her underlings also appear to have released details of fictitious deals on rice sales. Yingluck, the commerce and finance ministries have all confirmed over and over again that no rice is missing and everything is well, and rebuffed individuals and organizations that dare say opposite. Yingluck also instructed a check which she reported, after it was carried out wonderfully quickly, supported what she has been saying.

Now it looks like she may have been lying, like she did when she vowed farmers would be paid.

PTP created a complex scheme and shrouded it in mystery. Issuing contradictory figures and statements and making vague unsubstantiated comments. Their intentions were to sweep all of this away with some of the 2.2 trillion they wanted to borrow off budget, without parliamentary checks.

The problems could include:

• rice stolen from the warehouses
• rice invoiced but never really received
• high quality rice sold and replaced with lower quality rice.
• organizations forging export documents when really selling rice on the home market
• rice stored inappropriately
• infestation left untreated.

PTP have failed to present even basic accounts on this scheme. But, by most reckoning billions of baht are unaccounted for. Certainly the farmers weren't paid stretching back to last September in some cases. Some are still waiting.

The buildings are not all full to bursting point - some have a veneer of rice sacks covering scaffolding to give that appearance.

This is going to take some sorting out, even for a good team of forensic accountants. I'm sure the money trails will be even less transparent.

Again throughout all this Yingluck has maintained there are absolutely no problems or issues. You can call that gross negligence if you want or blind stupidity. Looks more like deliberate lying as part of a massive fraud. Unless she comes up with some detailed accounts and a large number of "fall guys" she could find this one harder to get out of than the Ample Rich Shares case.

[Prbkk]

Whatever the politics of it, it's sad to see one of Thailand's iconic products have its reputation destroyed in this way. French wine, Swiss chocolate, Thai rice. Once I would always choose Thai rice as the best available, now I wouldn't eat it unless certain of its origin. It will be a long climb back to re-establish its reputation.. Who, given a choice, would eat rice with the possibility of contamination, aflatoxin, weevils, etc? Only those without choice..

[PETERTHEEATER]

Sorry, but...

fires might have been caused by aluminium phosphate interacting with relative humidity

What is aluminium phosphate doing in a rice warehouse ?

Try to contaminate the rice above 10 ppm ( 10 microgram per kg ) and you can forget your export to the EU

As usual, inaccurate reporting or inaccurate statement by the inspector. Aluminium PHOSPHIDE (not PHOSPHATE) is used to kill insect infestation in rice stocks. In the presence of moisture it decomposes to produce a toxic flammable gas, in fact, self igniting on contact with air.

[Thai at Heart]

The scam is that the goverment said the rice was all good an not missing. They were so arrogant that they would not admit the problems and rectify them. By admitting storage was bad they might had to stop the program and they did not want that. So the blew even more taxpayer money. So they are guilty of gross negligence.

You do understand that not a single soul in the world ever beleived for one second that the rice wouldn't get any worse because it had been stored for a year or two. Every buyer in the world knows that the stuff reduces in quality and some of it will inevitably go mouldy. There was no way on earth to build enough space to be able to manage storing all this stuff and it would have been a crazy expense to do so. Basically, you would need at least 40% vacant space sitting around in order to be able to move the stuff around. All the buildings are full to bursting point.

So, ok, now it is gross negligence, not a scam. A scam would imply they got paid in some way.

Either you like playing devil's advocate or stringing a thread out for amusement or are genuinely a Thaksin supporter. Who knows?

Yingluck and various of her ministries and representatives have for many months being saying there was no problems. All the rice stocks were there and ready for sale. She has never been able or willing to provide detailed accounts - purchase costs, operations cost, sales revenues or details of losses/gains.

During this period she and several of her underlings also appear to have released details of fictitious deals on rice sales. Yingluck, the commerce and finance ministries have all confirmed over and over again that no rice is missing and everything is well, and rebuffed individuals and organizations that dare say opposite. Yingluck also instructed a check which she reported, after it was carried out wonderfully quickly, supported what she has been saying.

Now it looks like she may have been lying, like she did when she vowed farmers would be paid.

PTP created a complex scheme and shrouded it in mystery. Issuing contradictory figures and statements and making vague unsubstantiated comments. Their intentions were to sweep all of this away with some of the 2.2 trillion they wanted to borrow off budget, without parliamentary checks.

The problems could include:

• rice stolen from the warehouses
• rice invoiced but never really received
• high quality rice sold and replaced with lower quality rice.
• organizations forging export documents when really selling rice on the home market
• rice stored inappropriately
• infestation left untreated.

PTP have failed to present even basic accounts on this scheme. But, by most reckoning billions of baht are unaccounted for. Certainly the farmers weren't paid stretching back to last September in some cases. Some are still waiting.

The buildings are not all full to bursting point - some have a veneer of rice sacks covering scaffolding to give that appearance.

This is going to take some sorting out, even for a good team of forensic accountants. I'm sure the money trails will be even less transparent.

Again throughout all this Yingluck has maintained there are absolutely no problems or issues. You can call that gross negligence if you want or blind stupidity. Looks more like deliberate lying as part of a massive fraud. Unless she comes up with some detailed accounts and a large number of "fall guys" she could find this one harder to get out of than the Ample Rich Shares case.

How about a voice of reason who knows that the rice mess would have lost plenty on paper without Yingluck or her bunch taking a baht.

The loss would have easily occurred without any fraud at all. I am still waiting for anything conclusive to show a PTP scam that goes beyond theft of packed product to the tune of a couple tens of thousands of tonnes.

You think Yingluck stole the rice. You think anyone beyond the local guys know which warehouse is a mess or not. I have dealt in agriculture in thailand for many years.

Yes go to bangkok and get a report on stock from a govt office. Then go and see the reality. And this goes globally. Rarely does a govt operation anywhere in the world do a first rate job of anything agricultural.

I am still awaiting the discovery of the lost 3mn tonnes everyone talks about as the height of the scam. That is the real story, not rotten rice on the floor.