Self-Reliant Electricity Committees in Rural Areas Exploit Village Funds

July 22, 2014

A majority of self-reliant electricity providing programs in Mon State are riddled with misuse of funds and lack of transparent financial reporting; creating problems between electricity providing committees and local residents.

A self-reliant electricity providing program is a system in which rural villagers must buy electricity from an urban source. For instance, if a village has 200 houses, establishing electricity in their area, excluding wiring and installation costs and meter box fees, will cost around 70 million kyats; every household in the village will have to share the expense.

P-roi (Htinn Shuu) Village, Thanbyuzayat Township has two electricity providing committees – its former electricity committee and its new self-reliant electricity providing committee – and both committees are misappropriating money paid by local residents applying for electricity.

Due to this corruption, in June 2014, abbots in P-Roi Village organized a meeting to suggest the dissolution of both electricity providing committees, and to re-elect a new one. The abbots maintain that neither committee has been producing financial reports.

“If you don’t do like that (totally dissolve the electricity committees), the problem never ends. They (the electricity committees) don’t have financial records. If we ask them to report the financial situation, it will take a long time. So, just dissolving the committees is satisfactory. All the abbots in the village also decided to dissolve the committees,” said a P-roi resident.

Initially, P-roi residents (is this correct?) who decided to use the self-reliant electricity program to access electricity had to pay 400,000 – 500,000 kyats for the installation of a meter box. Now, the fee has risen to 600,000 – 700,000 kyat. Meter box installation fees are determined by the self-reliant electricity providing committee of each village.

When P-roi Village was allowed to establish a self-reliant electric committee, the villagers organized a self-reliant electricity providing committee, which collects money from each household in the village. The committee has full authority to manage these funds, but has failed to provide clear, transparent financial reports to the residents. Villagers feel the committee is acting dishonestly, and the committee’s exploitation of village funds has resulted in tensions between villagers and the electricity committee.

Similarly, in Da-Don-Chit (Wae-Thune-Chaung) Village, local residents formed a self-reliant electricity providing committee two years ago, and the committee has yet to provide transparent financial information to villagers, resulting in disunity amongst villagers.

The electricity providing committee in Wae-Rat Village has provided information on its financial situation to villagers, but the information is incomplete. Villagers are not satisfied that financial reports only include information on income, expense, and balance. Arguments surrounding fund management continue in Wae-Rat Village.

Every village which has its own self-reliant electricity providing committee has experienced problems with a lack of transparency of financial management. Problems have been exacerbated as the Township Electricity Department asked villagers to sign an agreement on financial reports explained by village electricity providing committees. Villagers were already aware of the electricity committee’s exploitation of village funds, and asking them to agree to incomplete financial records has increased tensions.

Every village which has a self-reliant electricity providing system is faced with tensions between committee members and villagers. Some analysts argue that in establishing this self-reliant electricity providing system, the government has capitalized on the opportunity to create disunity amongst rural civilians.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News