Ex-Thai PM Yingluck should pay USD1b fine, committee says

Yingluck Shinawatra

Former Thailand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government was ousted in a military coup in 2014, should be fined about 35 billion baht (USD1 billion) for overseeing a program to buy rice from farmers above market rates, a state-appointed committee recommended.
The proposed penalty amounts to about 20 percent of the 178 billion baht that the rice-purchase programs in 2012 and 2013 cost the country, Manas Jamveha, director general of the Comptroller General’s Department, told reporters Saturday. The committee appointed to look into the issue ruled it was an abuse of power and that Yingluck was negligent in overseeing the program while she was in power, said Manas, the commitee’s chairman.
A report will be submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance, which are both responsible for claiming damages from Yingluck before the case expires next February, Manas said. The office of National Anti-Corruption Commission or another related agency will decide who is responsible for the remaining damages, he said.
Junta leader and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said the government has to proceed with the case in accordance to the law and before it expires.
“Everyone is treated equally,” Prayuth told reporters yesterda. “I didn’t rush the process. The process is stated in the law.”
Yingluck’s  Pheu Thai Party has asked the National Council for Peace and Order to reconsider procedures that allow the government to sue for compensation on losses from the rice-purchase program and to revoke the use of special powers under the constitution, according to a statement to the council dated Sept. 25.
The case has been filed to the Supreme Court and “it is inappropriate for leaders to lead the society into making conclusions before the court has announced its ruling,” the party said in the statement.
Yingluck’s party won elections in 2011 in part by appealing to millions of rice farmers with a plan to buy crops at inflated prices. She said the program would help reduce inequality, while her opponents say it encouraged corruption.
After Yingluck’s government was ousted in a May 2014 coup, she was impeached and banned from politics for five years by the junta’s legislature for alleged graft in the rice-purchasing program. She is the sister of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Supunnabul Suwannakij, Bloomberg