Sirasa Kanpitaya, who was transferred from her post at the PDMO on February 20, 2014, also pointed out that the debt did not include the Bt90-billion loan from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperative.

Yingluck’s government spent close to Bt1 trillion purchasing rice from farmers at a price higher than the prevailing market price, resulting in losses of more than Bt500 billion, public prosecutors have said.

Under the scheme, the government was supposed to sell some of the stored rice to help to reduce the public debt, but most of the government-to-government deals were later discovered to be fake, other witnesses said.

Asked if she had been transferred from her PDMO post due to her refusal to increase state loans for this scheme, Sirasa said it had not been legally possible to borrow more money due to a House resolution.

Yingluck was also present in court yesterday to hear the testimony of state witnesses.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has issued an order barring the media from “misleading” the public by wrongly interpreting court hearings after Yingluck’s legal team complained that two newspapers and a TV station reported on the case inaccurately.