Lost stock replaced with poor substitute
The Public Warehouse Organization (PWO) has recently petitioned the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to investigate misconduct allegedly committed by its former acting chief, resulting in losses worth over a billion baht.
The case involves missing cassava stock weighing around 30,000 tonnes, worth then about 210 million baht. The alleged losses were caused during 2008’s cassava-pledging project, with the value of the damage growing to be worth more than a billion baht, according to Kriangsak Pratheepwisarut, the current PWO director.
The cassava stock in question was understood to have disappeared from a dozen privately run warehouses contracted by the government to store the produce.
The disappearance was discovered by an ad hoc inspection committee represented by the PWO, the Internal Trade Department and the Department of Foreign Trade in 2020. Owners of the warehouses were also included in the inspection.
The vanished stock prompted the PWO to file both criminal action and civil suits against the warehouses.
The former acting PWO chief was accused of trying to help the warehouse owners by relaxing rules that had allowed the owners to return the lost stock, thereby enabling them to avoid legal prosecution.
However, the returned stock comprised cheap, inferior-quality cassava priced at no more than 200 baht a tonne, substantially below the 7,000 baht per tonne of the pledged price.
The PWO’s investigation team determined that aiding in a way that caused lower-quality cassava to be procured in place of the lost stock amounted to an abuse of authority by the former acting chief.
The team’s findings were also consistent with the result of the joint inspection committee, according to Mr Kriangsak.
He said six of the 12 warehouse owners allegedly admitted to the cassava stock disappearing.
During the tenure of the former acting chief, the PWO had withdrawn five orders demanding compensation from the warehouse owners.
The cassava that could be recovered was auctioned off and fetched less than 6 million baht.