BANGKOK, May 22 (TNA) – The Supreme Administrative Court today ordered former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to pay 10.028 billion baht ($306 million) in damages related to her administration’s controversial rice-pledging scheme.
The ruling partially overturned an earlier Central Administrative Court decision that had revoked a 2016 Ministry of Finance order.
That original order had sought 35.717 billion baht from Yingluck, holding her responsible for alleged corruption and failing to prevent financial losses in the scheme.
The Ministry of Finance had appealed the Central Administrative Court’s decision.
The rice-pledging scheme, a flagship policy of Yingluck Shinawatra’s government from 2011 to 2014, bought rice from farmers at above-market prices. While popular among farmers, critics, including the military, deemed it financially unsustainable and prone to corruption, leading to significant state losses.
This controversy significantly contributed to the political unrest that culminated in the May 2014 military coup that ousted Yingluck. She was subsequently impeached in 2015 by the military-appointed legislature, leading to a five-year political ban. In a separate criminal case, the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Persons Holding Political Positions sentenced her in absentia to five years in prison in 2017 for negligence in the scheme; she fled Thailand before that verdict.
The civil case for damages was initiated under military rule. The initial 35.7 billion baht claim against her stemmed from alleged financial irregularities and her perceived failure to halt losses. -819 (TNA)
