Burma’s Agricultural and Rural Development Bank, formerly known as “Myanma Agriculture Bank,” is a state-owned bank established during the socialist government of General Ne Win for the welfare of the country’s 80 percent population—Burmese farmers.
The bank aimed at promoting the life of the farmers in the rural area of the country and it provided opportunities for the farmers to be able to lend money from the government with very cheap interest rate.
However, despite the shift from the socialist to market-oriented economy since 1988, the bank has continued to be the sole financial institution to lend short-term and long-term loans to the poor farmers in Burma.
The majority of poor Burmese farmers have so far relied on this rare financial assistance of this state-owned bank. A farmer who can provide evidence of possessing a land is allowed to lend money from the bank to buy cows, farming tools, water pumps, fertilizer, pesticides and crop seeds.
One major function of the Bank is that it usually deducts 5 percent of the lending money to the farmers as their savings when they return the loans to the bank after each harvesting year.
On May 2, 2008, the world witnessed the attack of the cyclone Nargis to Burma’s Irrawaddy delta, the rice bowl of the country. After nearly one year, few reports talked about the farmers’ savings in this state-owned agriculture bank which can be one rare financial source for their rehabilitation in the delta region.
How did the government manage the savings of the farmers in the delta region? Have the bank ever issued the financial information of the farmers’ savings?
Last December, a report entitled “Post-Nargis Periodic Review I was issued by the Tripartite Core Group comprised of representatives of the Government of the Union of Myanmar, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United Nations. The report said:
“Of the 7.35 million people living in affected Townships, it is estimated that 2.4 million people were severely affected by the Cyclone…It caused a devastating loss of life with an estimated 140,000 people killed or missing. The lives and livelihoods of survivors were also severely disrupted with up to 800,000 people displaced, 450,000 houses destroyed and substantial losses of food stocks, equipment, infrastructure and paddy.”
The National League for Democracy (Liberated Area) recently received a complaint letter written by a group of farmers and sent to the State Peace and Development Council on behalf of all the farmers in the Irrawaddy delta region.
The letter said that the bank has deducted 5 percent of the loans from the farmers for many years. The farmers also have their bank accounts for the savings. However, the farmers in the most cyclone-affected area lost everything, including their bank documents during the attack of the cyclone Nargis.
What the farmers in the delta area are now facing are: First, the bank have never issued the financial information for the savings of the farmers and secondly, as a consequence, the farmers can’t withdraw their saving money from the bank.
In fact, the infamous scandals of the bank have long been known among the farmers in Burma and they have to endure the situation for decades because they have no alternative option. Burma allowed the existence of private-owned banks after the 1988 popular democratic uprisings which toppled socialism in the country. However, they are not so much involved in the development of the country’s agriculture sector.
The letter said that of these scandals, the bank didn’t transfer the farmers’ saving money to their new bank document when the pages of the old one were used up and need to be renewed. It means that the new document started with new saving amount. Therefore, the farmers didn’t have information for the amount of their savings in the bank.
In fact, the farmers could buy their agricultural equipments through their saving accounts. However, only a few farmers who have a good relation with the bank authorities in their towns can have the chance by giving bribes to them.
Indeed, the Agriculture and Rural Development Bank of the SPDC should issue a financial statement on how it used the farmers’ savings in the past years and open an opportunity for the farmers in the cyclone-affected delta region to be able to buy cows, farming machinery tools and other necessary equipments with special discount prices or credit from the government.
If doing so, it will be an effective coping mechanism for the farmers from the survival line to their long-term sustainable rehabilitation.
Reported by National League for Democracy (Liberated Area)
Source: NLD LA
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