• 
• 

Published on September 7, 2007

Rising cases of corruption in rice warehouses around the country have prompted the Commerce Ministry to set up ad hoc teams to inspect stockpiles gathered under the government's rice-pledging programme.

From next week, the teams will inspect 422 warehouses containing a combined stockpile of 3 million tonnes of rice. The job is expected to take three weeks.

The inspection will not include rice stocks involved in alleged agreements between the government and President Agri Trading, which for the past two years has been Thailand's largest rice exporter.

The inspection follows the discovery that quantities of rice under the government's price-intervention programme are missing from warehouses.

Deputy Commerce Minister Oranuj Osatananda yesterday said officials from the ministry, targeted provinces and the Public Warehouse Organisation would join the inspecting teams.

"The teams will focus mainly on checking the quantity of rice in the warehouses rather than its quality," she said, adding that this was the third time this year for the ministry to check the quantity of rice in warehouses.

Meanwhile, the ministry failed to lure exporters into taking part in its latest round of bidding for rice stockpiles yesterday. The bidding focused on stockpiles seized from President Agri Trading, which was reportedly unable to maintain its contractual arrangements with the ministry to uplift quantities of rice from the warehouses.

Only six rice exporters joined the bidding for 513,495 tonnes of 5-per-cent B-grade white rice. In bidding for another lot, four companies made offers for a total of 45,103 tonnes of rice for the domestic market.

All traders offered prices lower than the current market price, which is Bt10,350 a tonne.

Chaiyaporn Rice offered the highest prices of Bt8,850 to Bt8,910 a tonne for 87,810 tonnes. Ponglarp was the second-highest bidder at Bt8,300 to Bt8,900 a tonne for 317,132 tonnes, and the lowest price offered was Bt7,500 a tonne.

Other bidders included Asia Golden Rice, Capital Cereal, Singtothong and Choke-anan (2003).

President Agri Trading bought the rice stocks in a 2005 round of bidding. It agreed to pay Bt9,500 per tonne. However, the company failed to remove all of the rice from the government's warehouses, and the ministry decided to seize it for rebidding.

If the government accepts the highest bids from yesterday's round, it will lose about Bt600 per tonne, or a total of Bt300 million, on the seized stockpile. It will then seek compensation from President Agri Trading.

The four bidders who sought rice for the domestic market offered prices ranging from Bt7,510 to Bt8,800 per tonne. The bidders included Chaiyaporn Rice, Ponglarp, CP Intertrade and Phichit Ruam Charoen Rice Miller II.

Oranuj said the ministry would negotiate with the bidders to achieve the best prices and quantities. The bidding result will be announced next week.

Meanwhile, a source in the rice-export industry yesterday said President Agri Trading stood accused of failing to pay for rice valued at Bt400 million uplifted from Capital Cereal warehouses.

Petchanet Pratruangkrai

 The Nation