Al Jazeera News :
Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand’s former prime minister, has vowed to fight an administrative order demanding she personally pays $1bn over her government’s money-losing rice subsidy scheme.
The plan, which paid farmers above market rates for their rice, was a flagship policy of Yingluck’s administration and helped sweep her to office in a 2011 general election. Thailand’s first woman prime minister, Yingluck was ousted by a court decision shortly before the military staged a coup in May 2014 and seized power from her elected government. After her overthrow, prosecutors accused Yingluck of criminal negligence over the scheme which critics say haemorrhaged billions of dollars and temporarily cost Thailand its crown as the world’s top rice exporter. Yingluck told reporters outside a Bangkok court on
Friday that she had received a notice two days ago ordering her assets to be seized and hitting her with a fine of 35 billion baht ($996m). “In terms of the order, it is not right and it is not just,” Yingluck said.
Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand’s former prime minister, has vowed to fight an administrative order demanding she personally pays $1bn over her government’s money-losing rice subsidy scheme.
The plan, which paid farmers above market rates for their rice, was a flagship policy of Yingluck’s administration and helped sweep her to office in a 2011 general election. Thailand’s first woman prime minister, Yingluck was ousted by a court decision shortly before the military staged a coup in May 2014 and seized power from her elected government. After her overthrow, prosecutors accused Yingluck of criminal negligence over the scheme which critics say haemorrhaged billions of dollars and temporarily cost Thailand its crown as the world’s top rice exporter. Yingluck told reporters outside a Bangkok court on
Friday that she had received a notice two days ago ordering her assets to be seized and hitting her with a fine of 35 billion baht ($996m). “In terms of the order, it is not right and it is not just,” Yingluck said.
