Rotten rice deal serves as proof of populism’s ills

Inthe absence of a clear definition on populism, Thai Rath newspaper asks how a policy or a project can be regarded as populist.

The issue has made newspaper headlines again after three bidders comprising a power plant, an ethanol producer and a bio-mass producer won a bid to purchase 1.39 million tonnes of rotten rice from the Commerce Ministry, said the paper in an editorial.

The bidding price was 1,000 baht a tonne which turned into a 30 billion baht loss for the state from this deal alone for rice bought under the rice-pledging scheme.

This is further evidence of the damage rendered by an extreme populist policy, it said.

The media has criticised Greece’s populist policies for driving the country towards bankruptcy, prompting the Greek government to hold a referendum last Sunday to allow its people to vote on whether to accept a creditor’s austerity package.

The “no” vote against the austerity programme has given the Greek prime minister more bargaining power in dealing with creditors but it has not done away with the “sin” committed by past and present Greek governments, the paper said. And the sin was the mountain of debt created as governments indulged in excessive spending to the point Greece was unable to repay its debts.

Greece’s populist policies may differ from Thai populist policies but they do have one thing in common — they engender excessive spending to curry favour with voters.

That is exactly what Thai politicians like to do — spend taxpayers’ money to buy favour from voters regardless of the damage, be it the first-car tax rebate programme, the first-house scheme, the village fund or credit cards for farmers, according to Thai Rath.

Because the rice-pledging scheme has cost the state several hundred billion baht in losses, a provision has been written into the draft constitution stipulating that good governance must be observed in budgetary spending.

Because of the absence of a clear definition for popularism, the editorial said that whether a project or a policy amounts to being populist must depend on someone’s interpretation.

TAWATCHAI KEMGUMNERD Officials take boxes of documents on the rice-pledging scandal from the Office of the Attorney-General to the Supreme Court for the courts consideration of the case earlier this year.

MTHAI An image of a buffalo who had two legs cut off after he ate rice plants causes a stir. The cruel incident happened in Vietnam.