Junta crony uses influence to cut voters’ power bills

Salai Han Thar San

New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burmese junta crony businessman Htay Myint has reached a price-cutting deal with local electricity suppliers for his constituents in Myeik District, Tenasserim Division, as a part of his electoral campaign.

The Yuzana chairman and candidate for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in southern Burma negotiated an agreement with the firms to reduce electricity charges for the people of his hometown.

Htay Myint is one of Burma’s richest businessmen. His Yuzana Company runs many interests in farming, construction and hotel and real estate across the country and he also owns Southern Myanmar Football Club, one of the professional teams in the Myanmar National League. He is subject to sanctions from countries including the United States, Canada and Britain, for his junta links.

He met local private power firm heads at Myeik District Peace and Development Council office on September 15 and told them to reduce electricity charges from 400 kyat [about 40 US cents] to 300 kyat per kilowatt hour for local residents. In return, he agreed to reduce the diesel price from 140,000 kyat to 120,000 kyat per barrel, a Myeik Electric Power Corporation official told Mizzima.

“Htay Myint … told them to reduce the electricity charges between December and next year March,” the official said.

He will contest for a Myeik seat in the People’s Assembly in the first nationwide elections to be held in Burma since 1990 on November 7.

Since 2008, local businessmen set up supply companies including Boethicho, Kya Maung, and Tavoy Community to distribute electricity 24 hours a day.

“We had to spend about 40,000-80,000 kyat [about US$80] for electricity in the past [but] now we’ll be spending less on electricity. I’ve not decided which party to vote for,” a businessman from Saitnge Ward told Mizzima.

The main parties contesting seats in the townships within Myeik District are the junta-backed USDP and the National Unity Party (NUP). The USDP candidates are also Tin Shein and Moe Myint for seats in the National Assembly and Khin Zaw, Dr. Kyaw San and Saw Ha Bee for the States and Regions Assembly.

The NUP’s are Pyi Aye for the People’s Assembly; Han Soe and Han Tint for the National Assembly; and Kan Htun and Maung Maung Naing for the States and Regions Assembly.

Exile media reports say Htay Myint has been or remains president of the Construction Owners’ Association, the Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association and the Myanmar Project Association.

According to Burma analyst Bertil Lintner, his junta contacts were strongest with former prime minister General Khin Nyunt, ousted in a purge in October 2004. “But the fact that Yuzana is still doing booming business in Burma indicates that he must have other high-level contacts as well,” he wrote in the Asia Times online newspaper.

Htay Myint and Yuzana are both on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list as they conduct business with the junta, and are therefore complicit in the ruling Burmese military government’s large-scale repression of the democratic opposition in Burma, among many other abuses.

His company is also being sued by farmers in Kachin State, northern Burma over land seized in the Hukawng Valley “tiger reserve”.

Meanwhile, another leading businessman, Dr. Khin Shwe [chairman of Zaykabar Construction, another group on many countries’ sanctions lists] will stand in Rangoon Division’s National Assembly constituency nine, which includes Kungyangon, Twantay and Kawhmu. The former president of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry will contest Sagaing Division National Assembly for Shwebo constituency.

The USDP is led by serving Prime Minister Thein Sein, a “former” top military officer, and comprises 1,134 candidates standing for 330 constituencies across Burma.