Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has been asked to investigate the former acting director of the Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) for alleged corruption concerning 30,000 tonnes of tapioca root, purchased by the PWO under the mortgage program to help tapioca farmers but which was stored in private sector warehouses.
According to Kriangsak Prateepvisut, the incumbent PWO director, the tapioca was purchased in three crop years, 2008-9, 2011-12 and 2012-13, under the Commerce Ministry’s tapioca mortgage program for more than 210 million baht. It was allegedly stolen from 12 warehouses for sale for profit and later replaced with low-grade tapioca, which was subsequently sold by auction for just six million baht.
Kriangsak said that 6 of the 12 owners of the warehouses that stored the 30,000 tonnes of tapioca roots admitted that they sold the product, later replacing it with low-grade tapioca.
He disclosed that an investigation committee, set up by the PWO, had discovered that the acting director, Pol Col “Rungroj”, had allegedly changed the regulation, allowing the warehouse owners to replace the stolen tapioca and had agreed to drop the complaints filed against them by the PWO.
Kriangsak also said that the alleged change of regulation by the former acting director has provided a pretext for the wrongdoing by warehouse owners, in claiming that they did not misappropriate the 30,000 tonnes of tapioca being kept in their warehouses.
If the PWO loses the court case against the warehouse owners, it may have to pay them the storage fees for the five years during which the tapioca was stored there, went missing and was then replaced with low-grade tapioca, he added.
Pol Col Rungroj has been working at the PM’s Office since 2022, pending the outcome of a probe into the deal between the PWO and Guardian Gloves Company for the procurement of 500 million boxes of rubber gloves, worth about 112 billion baht, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
