Price rises bite into impoverished Myanmar
rights record, shunned by foreign
investors and international financial
institutions, military-ruled
from spiralling
inflation.
Rice, the all-important staple, has nearly
doubled in price in a year, palm
oil has risen 25 percent since late
2002, and the price of public bus tickets
has doubled as well while the
devastated currency, the kyat, plummets to new
lows and civil servant salaries
remain stagnant.
Determined to go it alone, the junta known as
the State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) has concocted various schemes,
including a
crackdown on "greedy"
traders, aimed at solving a volatile economic crisis.
But analysts, experts and the everyman in the
bustling but ramshackle
capital
doubling of the vehicle fuel quota
earlier this month, will do little to ease
the plight.
"Many factors besides international
censure have contributed to the poor
economic showing of the past 15
years under military rule," one local expert
told AFP.
"Mismanagement in general" was the
key factor, he posed. "Hastily thought
out ad hoc measures which usually
come up short of expectations are a prime
example of the this
mismanagement."
policies and government control of
the economy, but international sanctions
also struck the nation hard
following the bloody repression of 1988
pro-democracy protests and 1990
elections the junta refused to recognise.
"It's very difficult to make ends meet
especially if you have a family,"
said Daw Ma Ma,
a primary school teacher in
by discreetly offering private
tutoring lessons.
Her state monthly wage is pegged at around
5,000 kyats, less than five
dollars at the prevailing
open-market rate of 1,100 kyat to the greenback.
Low-level civil servants are paid 7,500 to
10,000 kyat per month, barely
enough to scratch out a living even
with government subsidies for low-grade
rice and other necessities.
As a result,
commonly called "tea
money" here is pervasive in virtually every government
office.
Recent rumours of what was to be the first
government pay raise in years
have so far proved unfounded,
though they have led to further increases in
prices of consumer goods.
The price for the standard 46-pound (21-kilo)
bag of rice topped 6,000 kyat
recently, compared to 3,500 kyat
less than a year ago.
Subsistence families are known to sell part of
their monthly food rations
subsidized by the central
government, such as sugar soap and toothpaste, for
higher prices on the open market.
The government's latest bid to stabilize
skyrocketing commodity prices,
mainly through its January 6
decision to double the fuel quota to four gallons
per day, will be ineffective, the
expert said.
Some
quota move, saying fuel prices on
the open market plunged by 25 percent this
month.
But the measures themselves have been offset by
official announcements of
huge increases in fares for public
transport, including domestic air, rail and
bus travel.
"Some bus lines in the city are already
charging 20 kyats instead of the
regular 10 kyats for short
trips," said Win Sein, who commutes from a
satellite town into the city
suburbs for her caddying job at a golf club.
On January 1, the junta, citing sharp rises in
fuel costs, announced stiff
price hikes for railways and the
domestic carrier Myanmar Airways. Flights
from the capital to the northern
city of
while rail travel on the same route
has tripled.
The SPDC insists it is taking adequate measures
towards economic viability,
but in his Independence Day message
to the nation January 4, SPDC chairman
Senior General Than Shwe issued a
blunt reminder to
"frugality" was a
national responsibility.
kmt/mlm/co/nj