NAY PYI TAW — An opposition parliamentarian has called for a reassessment of next year’s budgets for state enterprises under the Ministry of Industry while suggesting that its many loss-making factories should be closed or privatised.
Daw Sandar Min, National League of Democracy MP for Zabuthiri Township, called for the establishment of a committee to vet the ministry’s budget plans for its factories in fiscal 2016-17 at the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Lower House) session on Friday.
The next NLD-led government, which will take office on April 1, should set up a committee to inspect the operations of the ministry’s No. 1 Heavy Industry Enterprise factories located at Thagara, Sinte and Malun in upper Myanmar, Daw Sandar Min said.
The factories have been allocated a budget of K23,396.1 million (US$18.0 million) out of the ministry’s total budget of K83,761.7 million for next fiscal year.
The NLD MP noted that most of the ministry’s factories were running at a loss, with the ministry’s accumulated losses for fiscal 2015-16 amounting to K28,298.0 million.
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The Kyaukse glass factory alone had already lost K10,686 million this fiscal year, which ends on March 31, she said.
Daw Sandar Min suggested that the failing factories should be closed or leased out to “private entrepreneurs.”
The Pharmaceutical Industry is one of the few state enterprises under the Ministry of Industry that was cutting even, and their planned budget should also be reviewed, the MP said.
