VIEWPOINT
Just Doing Our Job But the dangers in carrying out public service reporting haven’t gone away By KYAW ZWA MOE / YANGON
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ast month, The Irrawaddy disclosed information that the government wanted to keep hidden from the public, and as a result we are now on the “blacklist” of Yangon Region’s chief minister. That’s what one lower-level minister in the regional government and a lawmaker in the regional legislature voluntarily told The Irrawaddy, though they requested anonymity. The minister suggested that Irrawaddy reporters use pen names or forgo their bylines if they plan to continue writing investigative stories about the secrets of Chief Minister U Myint Swe. The lawmaker claimed to have overheard the chief minister telling another official in the regional legislature that he was not pleased by our thorough reporting. “The Irrawaddy
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TheIrrawaddy
should be put on the blacklist—see the critical stories they keep writing,” the lawmaker quoted the chief minister as saying. On Sept. 2, an investigation by our news organization revealed the nepotism of U Myint Swe, who awarded the contract for a multi-billion dollar city expansion project to two Chinese businessmen who have had a close relationship with him for years. (To see the original report, turn to the Business section). U Myint Swe’s regional government awarded the contract secretly to the businessmen’s largely unknown company, Myanmar Say Ta Nar Myothit. Without any prior consultation, the chief minister announced the decision to the regional legislature on Aug. 22, leading to criticism by lawmakers about a lack of transparency for such a major development project.
The Irrawaddy’s Myanmarlanguage journal and its Englishlanguage website first reported that the company belonged to the two Chinese businessmen, Messrs. Xiao Sen and Xiao Feng, who, according to several of our sources, are quite friendly with the chief minister. We reported that the two businessmen had also received business concessions in the past thanks to their close relations with other highranking officials in the former junta, including a retired major-general, former Construction Minister U Khin Maung Myint and former Yangon Mayor U Aung Thein Lin, who is now a member of the Lower House of Parliament. One week later, as local journals and websites reported on the regional government’s lack of transparency, government officials backed down and said they would put out a tender for the development project in the near future, giving all private companies a chance to participate. However, business circles in Yangon remain skeptical. Our investigation was not intensive, but it did reveal the tip of a rampant practice of nepotism among highranking officials in the current central and local governments. And while we could have dug much deeper, it was enough to anger the chief minister. U Myint Swe, however, is not atypical. For decades, government officials in Myanmar have been notorious for padding their pockets by granting lucrative business concessions to cronies and close family members. In the past, censorship prevented anyone inside the country from disclosing these murky deals that affected not only public assets but also natural resources. “Nothing has changed,” a wellknown and wealthy businessman told me over the phone when I called to ask about U Myint Swe’s recent deal with the Chinese businessmen. He said Messrs. Xiao Sen and Xiao Feng, like some other lesser-known cronies in the country, do not appear on the US sanctions list. According to a ranking by graft watchdog Transparency International,
October 2014