PHUSADEE ARUNMAS

The government should temporarily halt its rice intervention programme for four months to allow officials to manage rice in stockpiles more effectively, says the head of the state-run Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO).

The intervention scheme, which offers farmers high prices for pledging paddy, has been run for more than two decades to support rural families. It has also served as a very effective political tool to win farmers' votes.

Pledging prices have tended to be higher than market prices, and they soared under the deposed Thaksin Shinawatra government, which paid as much as 10,000 baht per tonne for white rice when the market price was only 7,000 baht.

According to Pisut Chlakornkul, the PWO president, such attractive prices led to large increases in PWO's stockpiles. The state agency now holds four million tonnes worth about 40 billion baht, up from three million tonnes three years ago.

The rice is stored at PWO warehouses nationwide and at the warehouses of millers.

''We don't have enough officials to monitor all the grain at warehouses. Actually, we can manage only 1.5 million tonnes of rice,'' said Mr Pisut.

He advised the government to freeze the scheme for four months from November to give the PWO time to offload the grain.

''That way, we will be able to prevent rice from being stolen,'' he said.

The PWO's inefficiency was exposed when 54,675 sacks of rice were stolen from a contracted private warehouse in Phichit over several days in mid-August. The heist involved eleven 18-wheel trucks and the mill owner was arrested and charged. The rice was worth about 63 million baht.

So far, Mr Pisut said, about 30,000 sacks had been recovered in other provinces.

The rice does not belong to President Agri Trading, a giant rice exporter that has failed to deliver about one million tonnes of rice that it won from a series of tenders called by the Commerce Ministry three years ago.

According to Mr Pisut, the PWO board is also considering plans to develop assets and properties to add value for the cash-strapped agency.

Proposed plans include developing 40-rai plots on the Chao Phraya River banks as residential or commercial areas. It also plans to develop sites in Bang Pa-in, Bang Sai, Laem Chabang and Roi Et into rice silos, cold-storage and logistics services centres.

The investment could be as high as 10 billion baht and free up three billion baht in cash.

However, before utilising the state enterprise's properties, changes to the Public Warehouse Organisation Act are necessary, a source said.