Corruption Focus: 2) Yingluck says “Show me corruption, not just talk & I will prosecute all” (Up-Dated)

By Ranger, Thai Intel’s political journalist

Responding to statements that her rice subsidy is hit by massive corruption, Yingluck said today, quote: “Show me corruption, not just talk & I will prosecute all.”

The statement comes after deputy permanent secretary for finance Supa Piyajitti told the Senate Tuesday, that the Yingluck rice subsidy is hit by massive corruption. Most neutral observer says, with such massive corruption, as indicated by many statements, the evidence of corruption, must be massive and easy to prove.

The well known to hate Yingluck news outfit, Bangkok Post reports, that this is the first time Ms Supa has admitted there is evidence of corruption in every step of the process. The corruption starts from the registration of farmers mortgaging paddy, with exaggerated figures being provided to the state, Ms Supa said. She said the Commerce Ministry allowing rice mills to keep pledged paddy in storage for 50 days, up from seven days previously, before sending milled rice to the government’s central warehouses, has encouraged some corrupt people to repeatedly pledge paddy under the government scheme.

While making those assertions, Supa gave no supporting facts, but is relying on her credibility to prove her point. Supa earlier, gave out information on the rice scheme loss to the press, breaking protocol of how government information is handled,which greatly damaged Yingluck’s government. The information of loss, in the many billions, was leaked to the press by Supa, and cause Moodys credit rating agency, to make a credit warning on Thailand. Perhaps realizing, that the Thai press and Supa has credibility problems, Moodys made a correction, and said Thailand’s credit rating was not under threat and Thai finances are relatively robust.

It is un-clear, where Supa is coming from, but most analyst says Supa is taking a role of a “Whistle Blower.”  Yet the fact remains that Supa, have not, thus far, substantiated her many statements, with factual evidence, and her statement on the rice scheme losses, were based on initial reports and estimates, not yet vetted by higher level officials. The loss of some many billions, the Yingluck government says, is from 3 seasons.

“I want Supa, to get into the details of her allegations, of where the actual corruptions problems are, because with factual evidence, I will prosecute all involved that she points out” said Yingluck.

(Up-Dated) Supa told TPBS, a local TV station, a day after she went to the Senate, that there is no wide-spread corruption, just danger of wide-spread corruption. That is her latest statement and she may reverse her position again)

Yingluck also said her government, with the Thai police, just inspected all rice silos in Thailand, some 2,000 silos, for corruption, and found only about 28 cases of corruption. “The press must be fair to the government also, because you saw we inspecting the silos across the country for corruption and found few cases,” said Yingluck. Yingluck also said, that with the inspection, actual figure of rice in stock, at the time of the inspection, for the whole country, has been established, as before, it involved new stocks, as old stocks are sold.

Yet the fact remain, that the inspection and result of the inspection, was little news in Thailand, where most press here are anti Yingluck and anti Thaksin.

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