The Comptroller-General’s Department recently concluded that six former top officials of the Commerce Ministry, including former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom and his deputy Phum Saraphol, were held responsible for Bt20 billion in losses to the state.

This week, the Finance Ministry instructed the Commerce Ministry to obtain an administrative order seeking compensation from Boonsong and the others deemed responsible.

The G2G rice deals were part of the Yingluck Shinawatra government’s rice-pledging scheme that was allegedly plagued with corruption and was estimated to cost the state more than Bt500 billion.

Government Spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkanerd said yesterday that the premier had instructed the Commerce Ministry to deal with the matter carefully but that it also had to complete the task within a legal time frame.

“The prime minister would like to tell all bureaucrats that this was an expensive lesson. They should bear in mind that they have to adhere to righteousness, integrity and the law,” the spokesman said. “Bureaucrats should not allow themselves to become a tool of politicians.”

The four others named by the Comptroller-General’s Department as responsible for the Bt20 billion in damages were former ministerial secretary Weerawut Wajanaphukka, former Department of Foreign Trade director-general Manas Soiploy, the department’s former rice-trade director Tikhumporn Natvaratat, and the department’s former secretary Akharaphong Chuaikliang.

The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders was told in an ongoing trial that four G2G deals for 6.2 million tonnes of government rice were bogus, as the rice was never exported.

A group of farmers is seeking help from the prime minister to expedite the payment of funds some local cooperatives owe them for the rice purchased under the last government’s rice-pledging scheme.

Sawat Chaisian, a representative of farmers from the provinces of Kamphaeng Phet and Nakhon Sawan, said yesterday that some 50 members of the group had handed the petition over at the complaint office in Government House on Wednesday. They said the cooperatives still owed 83 farmers in the group some Bt16 million.