Narinjara News
Burmese Junta’s
development: sans electricity!
Sittwe, 24th July 03: The Burmese State Peace and
Development Council junta has recently formed an Electricity Committee in
Sittwe, the capital of the western
Sources told our correspondent that though a lot has been touted about the
formation of the electricity committee, only three hours in the evenings and
that too every other day is what power the townspeople have been getting.
The monthly bill of electricity has been fixed at a rate between kyat 3,000 and
4,000, which is about the same as the monthly salary of an ordinary state
employee.
Last year the military regime handed over the power generation and marketing to
a private company, Inn-bauk-wa, which after
collecting kyat 7,000 from each household as electrical connection fees, failed
to run the enterprise due to the SPDC’s cancellation of the company’s licence to market fuel oils in the state and entrusting it
to Ubaing Limited, a company owned by the
regime. “The marketing of fuel oils by the Ubaing
Ltd goes through a channel of corruption, making diesel and gasoline fuels
including lubricants many times more costlier than the
actual price, and rendering the supply chain miserable,” said an owner of a
transport company. In the aftermath the Inn-bauk-wa
returned all the money they collected as power connection fees to the
depositors.
The situation created a power crisis in the state capital, compelling the
townspeople to opt for their own supply of power generation through smaller
generator sets. “Our situation now is such that our development has
retarded to even to the pre-British colony days, because during the colonial
rule we used to get a 24-hour supply of electricity in Sittwe. Without
electricity the education of our children and the growth of the business and
industries is suffering. Our computers are idle
and many householders are using their fridges as cupboards! Our life is
so miserable that we cannot even use the basic household appliances,” said a
doctor in the State hospital.
He also said that for an emergency operation the generator of the hospital is
run by the money collected from patients because of the lack of electricity and
scarcity of diesel fuel. As a result the patients blame the doctors as
‘extortionists’. “We don’t have any other option, either. The SPDC
regime without developing the electricity sector has off and on been bragging
about the development of border areas including