The Democrat Party requested the national anti-graft body to investigate the government's rice- pledging and village-fund schemes during censure debate late last week, The Nation reported on Tuesday.

Opposition Democrat MP Ong-arj Klampaibul said Monday the party have received complaints of alleged irregularities in the Small, Medium and Large (SML) Loan project from villagers.

He and Democrat MP Warong Dechgitvigrom submitted the party's petition to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

The SML project allocates about 9,800 U.S. dollars to 16,000 U. S. dollars to each of 70,000 villages nationwide for promoting local businesses and start-ups.

Ong-arj said villagers claimed that local politicians abused the SML fund to conspire to sell goods from affiliated businesses at unreasonably inflated prices.

Regarding the rice-pledging scheme, Warong said he had investigated the rice-mortgaging scheme which he found several irregularities and handed over evidence to the NACC showing that there were abuses.

The government had claimed that rice in its stocks had been sold to three foreign countries under government-to-government contracts, but the Democrat found that the rice were sold to a firm in the country, the Democrat MP said.

The Democrats asked the NACC to probe the prime minister, commerce minister, senior government officials and some private firms, he added.

PM's Office Minister Warathep Ratanakorn said the alleged corruption of SML funds happened a long time ago and the government was investigating the case.

The government stopped providing funds to the villages under suspicion in August, he added.