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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 1/18/14

Myanmar should chew on defense expenses

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So, people believe that Myanmar government -- with civilian outfits and military in essence -- will spend the defense operating cost more than it writes on the paper. Although the disguised regime says 12.26 per cent (US$2.3 billion) of the budget this budget year will go to defense, there may not be trustworthy check-and-balance system in the parliamentary pattern.

Besides, a great number of citizens are skeptical about the military involvement in the country's economy. If truth be told, the military and their cronies have a huge amount of control over the country's financial system. The military set up two economic enterprises, the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Limited (UMEHL) and the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), in 1990 and 1993 respectively. Both are still taking advantage of the country's key economic sectors with no benefits flowing to the Myanmar citizens.

The country's important natural resources and heavy industries including import, export and service sectors are dominated by the UMEHL, MEC and their crony allies. Military-run business firms and crony enterprises are doing well but evading income taxes, and precious natural resources have been exploited while the majority of citizens have been living in dire poverty for decades. Despite much talk about needed economic reform, President U Thein Sein failed to mention the tax evasion of the military and crony businesses.

Although foreign earnings from the natural resources are largest in the country, there has been no revenue transparency under both the previous military regime and the current U Thein Sein government. The government's credit-and-debit accounts concerning the foreign earnings from resources including oil and gas are not publicly revealed. The same practice is going on with the defense budget expenditure.

Myanmar remains one of the world's least developed countries, and was ranked 138 out of 182 countries in the 2010 UN's Human Development Index. Burma is regularly along with the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index -- in 2009, Burma was ranked third from the bottom after Afghanistan and Somalia.

Myanmar is one of Asia's poorest countries, reflected in its health indicators. It had the 44th highest infant mortality rate of the 193 countries listed by the UNICEF in its 2011 State of the World's Children report.

Myanmar has no check and balance system since the defense sector regularly takes the lion share of the annual budget. If the government really wants to lift the people's social standard or trim down poverty, it must trim down its defense spending first. Without external threats, the country should not pay out too much for the military. ///

 

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Zin Linn was born on February 9, 1946 in a small town in Mandalay Division. He began writing poems in 1960 and received a B.A (Philosophy) in 1976. He became an activist in the High School Union after the students' massacre on 7th July 1962. (more...)
 

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