“Currently MP Nai Tun Ohn is collecting lists of both damaged paddy acres and the total amount of acres,” said a farmer from Kwankabue Village, Mudon Township. Nai Tun Ohn won his seat from among 16 MPs of the All Mon Region Democratic Party (AMDP).

Nai Tun Ohn, a National Parliament MP who was born in Kwankabue Village, started collecting the information last Monday, and will deliver his report to the Mon State Chief Minister and concerned authorities in Naypyidaw.

Nai Tun Ohn is working to collect more details about damaged paddy fields because the Mon State Chief Minister told him that his initial report, delivered last week, contained many gaps in information. The minister asked him to revise the report before submitting it again.

In his initial document, Nai Tun Ohm reported to the Mon State Chief Minister that approximately 2,500 acres out of 5,000 total acres in Kalort-tort, Kawpehtaw, Phado, Taung-pa, Htone-mun, Kawkabue, Doe-mar, and Set-thawe villages in southern Mudon Township have been damaged.

About twenty farmers started digging a well to reduce canal water in April at the request of the Mon State Chief Minister and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Breeding. However, the well was dug shortly after U Myo Nyunt, the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Breeding, inspected the Winphanon Dam area. The heads of village tracts also collected money for digging the canal.

“If the new government can’t solve the problems of our flooded fields, he will,” a Kwankabwe farmer recalls Nai Tun Ohn telling Kwankabue villagers.

“The new government hasn’t finished the work on the canal on their own. It will only be done if the farmers regularly request improvements to the canal and report the situation to them,” said Nai Tun Ohn.

Nai Tun Ohn told the farmers the reason for collecting the information is that the residents in the affected areas could not enter Thailand to look for work while not being able to earn income from working on rubber and paddy plantations during the rainy reason.