Myanmar: Rakhine's hydropower pipe dreams

Myanmar: Rakhine's hydropower pipe dreams

THE INAPPROPRIATE comments or ambitious predictions of government ministers
and senior officials have long been the butt of humour and derision in
Myanmar.

Some of their most inept statements have been compared to a (possibly
apocryphal) comment attributed to the ill-fated last queen of France,
Marie-Antoinette. Told in the months before the French Revolution in 1789
that her starving peasant subjects had no bread, she is said to have
replied, "Then let them eat cake".

When U Thein Sein was president, one of his political advisers, U Ko Ko
Hlaing, said publicly that citizens without electricity could "light your
candles". Former chief minister of Ayeyarwady Region, U Thein Aung,
dispensing advice about how to get rich, said, "You can start by becoming a
trishaw driver".

In Rakhine State, residents still scoff at a bold prediction made in 2009 by
the junta's Minister for Electric Power-1, Colonel Zaw Min, who shed his
uniform to serve in the same portfolio in the Thein Sein government until he
resigned in September 2012.

"More than 690 megawatts will be produced by four hydropower projects in
Rakhine State," he said.

It was one of many predictions made under the junta about electricity
production that never became a reality. Eight years later the residents of
Rakhine are still waiting for the hydropower plants - or any form of
electricity generation, really - to light up their lives.

The 2014 census found that just 12.8 percent use electricity for lighting,
although another 8.9 percent rely on a generator and 3.2 percent on solar.
Nearly 60 percent rely on candles.

This is because the vast majority of Rakhine State residents are not
connected to the national grid. For many, the only electricity available is
provided by diesel generators run by private companies, which charge 10
times - or more - than the national tariff of K35-50 a kilowatt hour.

Businessman U Lon Aung, from Thandwe Township, said he believed the state
needed 24-hour electricity to develop. "By that I mean government
electricity. Now we have to pay private companies and this is a big expense
for businesses," he said.

But Daw Mya Shwe, 59, from Gwa Township, said the four hours she receives
each day was "enough".

"Most of us are used to not having electricity," she said. "But I don't know
about other people, maybe they need more."

Disappearing projects

So what happened to the four projects that were supposed to bring power to
Rakhine State?

Zaw Min said hydropower would be generated in Rakhine by projects at Ann,
Thahtay, Laymro and Sai Din. Under his watch as minister, memoranda of
understanding for the projects were signed by the Hydropower Administration
Department of the Ministry of Electric Power-1 and private companies such as
Future Power Co Ltd and Anawrahta Group Co Ltd.

Work had begun on the Ann project - the smallest of the four projects in
Rakhine, with a generating capacity of 11MW - before Zaw Min was first
appointed minister in 2006. About 40 acres (16.2 hectares) of farmland was
confiscated for the project but in those years no one dared to speak out
about hardship caused by the junta.

Frontier met three of the farmers whose land was confiscated. They are still
waiting to be compensated.

"Some of us could not survive after that and some of us moved to another
township to make a living," said a farmer, 56, who spoke on the condition
that Frontier did not reveal his identity.

Some work on the Ann project began in about 2014. A few buildings were
erected at the site and six project staff still live in the area, but
there's been no progress on a hydropower plant.

Frontier even had difficulty finding the project site. The road was
overgrown with bushes and there were no signs to indicate the location. Most
of the buildings have been washed away by flooding; only those housing the
staff remain. There was no sign of any construction equipment.

The project to build a hydropower station at the Sai Din waterfall in
Rakhine's northwestern Buthidaung Township has a complicated history dating
to the early years of independence. The 76.5MW facility was first proposed
by Prime Minister U Nu's government in about 1950 but work was halted in
1952 after a foreign engineer was killed by Communist Party of Burma
insurgents.

In 1988, the State Law and Order Restoration Council junta announced a
resumption of work on the project but it was postponed three years later for
unknown reasons.

In April 2009, when the junta was known as the State Peace and Development
Council, it said the project would go ahead and a resumption of work was
announced by the Ministry of Electric Power-1 in 2010.

In a statement released on March 18, 2010, the ministry boasted that the
project would generate an average of 220 million kilowatts a year and
provide extra power to all Rakhine towns on the grid as well as supplying
electricity for the first time to 10 towns in Buthidaung.

Little has been heard about the Sai Din project since then. Attempts by
Frontier to contact anyone involved in the project have been fruitless.

The independent Rakhine news agency, Narinjara, speculated in April 2009
after the junta announced a resumption of work at Sai Din that it was a ploy
to attract votes for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development
Party in the 2010 general election. Whether there was ever a genuine
intention to proceed with the project is unclear.

The biggest proposed hydropower development in Rakhine is the Laymro project
in Mrauk-U Township. It is a cascade of two dams, Laymro-1 and Laymro-2,
which are planned to generate 600MW and 90MW, respectively.

An online industry newsletter, HydroWorld.com, reported in July last year
that France had agreed to provide US$1 million to the government for a
feasibility study on the project, which has been opposed by environmental
groups because of the forested areas it will inundate.

The project was first proposed in 2006 and the Thein Sein government planned
to start work in May 2012. Construction equipment and machinery was
transported to Mrauk-U before the project was suspended for unknown reasons.

Plans are progressing for two other hydro projects, Thandwe and Kyeintali,
that were not mentioned by Zaw Min. Both in southern Rakhine State, they
will have a capacity of 30 and 28 megawatts, respectively.

'We don't want to talk about the government'

The only project making concrete progress is Thahtay, but it has been
painfully slow due to budget shortfalls and technical challenges.

The projected output of the Thahtay project is 111MW, making it the biggest
after Laymro. It will be built on the Thahtay Creek, about 19 kilometres (12
miles) northeast of Thandwe.

Myanmar conglomerate, the IGE Group of Companies owned by the sons of the
late U Aung Thaung, the junta's Minister for Industry-1 from 1997 to the
change of government in 2011, has been working on the project since 2009.

The project got underway in 2004 but remains less than 50 percent complete,
and the anticipated cost has blown out significantly.

Under the former government, the project attracted attention from
parliamentarians keen to understand why it has faced so many delays.

In January 2013, Deputy Minister for Electric Power U Myint Zaw was called
on by Pyithu Hluttaw lawmakers to justify the ministry's request for K45.62
billion (US$53.4 million at the time) in that year's budget for the project.
By that time, Thahtay had been underway for nine years, yet was just 23
percent complete.

Myint Zaw said it had faced delays "because of difficulties digging tunnels
for the dam due to the 'geological complexity' of the area" but insisted it
would be complete by 2018-19.

In May 2015, another deputy minister, U Aung Than Oo, told lawmakers that
the project would need another K230 billion to be completed. By then it was
just 28 percent complete.

The Myanmar Times reported at the time that the Department of Hydropower
Implementation and China's Gezhouba Group have signed an agreement to import
equipment for the hydropower plant using a loan from the state-owned
Export-Import Bank of China.

When Frontier visited the Thahtay project site in April, though, there were
few signs of progress. Although about 800 workers were present, only a
handful appeared to be doing anything productive.

A bypass tunnel had finally been built - several earlier efforts to build
the tunnel failed, according to site staff - but foundations were yet to be
laid for the embankment. Plans for the turbine building and switchyard
existed only on paper. And, 13 years after work got underway, environmental
and social impact assessments were being prepared by Norway-based NGOs,
according to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Project engineers said that the anticipated cost had also risen and they
would now need K348 billion to complete it.

A senior engineer at the dam site blamed the slow progress on lack of an
adequate budget from Nay Pyi Taw, which he said had worsened under the
National League for Democracy government.

"We're waiting for the budget," the engineer said. "We don't want to talk
about the government anymore."

But there still appears to be some political support for the project, too.
In late April, Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu, an NLD lawmaker in the
state hluttaw, conducted an inspection of the site.

For the long-suffering residents of Rakhine, progress at Thahtay and the
state's other stalled projects can't come soon enough.

But U Soe Win, the NLD region hluttaw MP for Gwa-1, is not holding his
breath.

"Lampposts have already been built in our township. The government said the
grid is coming, but we are still waiting," he said. "We don't expect too
much from these hydro projects."

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Link to Original Article:
http://frontiermyanmar.net/en/rakhines-hydropower-pipe-dreams

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com