MP opposes Suthin’s plan to buy 10-year-old rice for soldiers to eat

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

A MOVE FORWARD MP today (May 9) voiced dissent to Defence Minister Suthin Khlangsang’s plan to buy 10-year-old rice from government stock for soldiers to eat for fear of toxic residue in it.

Move Forward MP Viroj Lakkhanaadisorn said the 10-year-old rice which Suthin has offered to have the Ministry of Defence purchase for consumption by servicemen could probably contain hazardous chemicals such as cancer-causing aflatoxin, methyl bromide and aluminium phosphide.

Those hazardous chemicals could probably more or less remain even if the 10-year-old rice may have been washed with water for as many as 20 times over, Viroj said.

The Pheu Thai-attached defence minister has confirmed the armed services would gladly support the government’s plan to promote the public consumption of the 10-year-old rice which has been stored by the Public Warehouse Organization under a scandalous rice subsidy programme  implemented by a previous Pheu Thai government under deposed prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra since the last decade.

But the Move Forward MP contended that the rice could probably be hazardous to the health of the consumer after it had been treated with insecticides whilst in stock over the last decade.

Viroj suggested a large volume of the 10-year-old rice be scientifically examined before a large quantity of the rice may be eaten by soldiers and that a handful of its sample for a scientific test will not be enough to guarantee their health safety.

That Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai himself has eaten a few spoons of the 10-year-old rice in a recent demonstration of its purported edibility could not effectively guarantee the health safety of the consumer, according to the opposition lawmaker.

Phumtham, viewed as a right-hand-man of de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict on parole Thaksin Shinawatra, who has earlier assured the 10-year-old rice’s qualities remained unchanged, has been allegedly looking to justify the corruption-ridden rice subsidy campaign of the deposed Yingluck government to the extent that it had been appropriately designed at policy level though it may have been subsequently mismanaged at working level.

That has been alleged by government critics as part of a sustained effort to bring the self-exiled Yingluck back home sooner or later without being literally thrown in jail to serve a five-year jail sentence earlier delivered by court for her duty-negligence charges pertaining to the disreputable rice subsidy programme.

The former woman prime minister would likely follow in the footsteps of the politically powerful de facto Pheu Thai boss to return home after she has fled the country in 2017 but would be unlikely to have any “critical illnesses” as had been the case of her brother in which he had been allegedly entitled to double-standard privileges and kept himself from being literally put behind bars for a single day, according to government critics.

CAPTIONS:

Above: A pile of 10-year-old rice with an image of  Defence Minister Suthin Khlangsang inset. Photo:  3PlusNews

Insert: Move Forward MP Viroj Lakkhanaadisorn. Photo: Thai Rath

Front Page: Soldiers having their meal. Photo: TV5HD

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