Dismissed employees of the Myanmar Agricultural Service (MAS) in 2005 will be reassigned if they can bribe the state authorities, said an officer of the MAS.
"One officer of the MAS told me how to speak and bribe the authorities," according to a dismissed employee in Mudon Township Mon State .
The dismissed employees who want to get their jobs back have to pay the amount that the authorities want. Not only will they have to bribe the authorities but also have work as daily workers in the MAS department.
"I don't want to pay as the amount they (authorities) want is pretty high and we will just get over 10,000 Kyat per month," said a dismissed employee who is now sewing.
The military government SPDC dismissed about 9,600 employees and assigned new staff from Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MAI) since February 2005. The dismissed employees dissatisfied at the process and have to take out their monthly emoluments in other department such as Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) offices.
"MAS can't manage its programmes such as agricultural education imparted to farmers, providing fertilizer and antiseptic. That's why MAS lost 3000 million Kyat of its investment in the service. Because of such a serious loss, Senior General Than Shwe felt that the employees in MAS do not have sufficient capacity for management. He named the employees as 'extra employees' and dismissed them from our department," said a MAS official who worked as manager for near 30 years.
According to a dismissed employee, they are dissatisfied because of the unfair dismissal process. "How can we be satisfied? The employees were dismissed and the authorities continued to employ their relatives," said Ma Yin Aye, a dismissed employee.
"Another matter was they had to sign every day as if they were working in the office and received the salary from the Township PDC office, but not from their department. They did not receive other on-wage costs for travel and so on. The authorities also reduced the number of employees to seven from the average 20 to 30 employees in each office," she said.
"The government did not make a clear probation order and the dismissed employees do not want to withdraw salary or compensation from the TPDC office. I think the government is also concerned that if they dismissed massive numbers, it will against the labour laws," said the manager who worked in MAS in Tenasserim Division, Pegu division, Mon, and Arakan State .
According to him, the mismanagement in the government is not in the level of departmental civil servants, it is in the level of ministerial managers.
"MAS faced loss because the Ministry did not conduct a need assessment survey among the farmers in the country. They just imported these chemical antiseptic and fertilizer and tried to sell to farmers. The farmers did not purchase these materials," said the manager.
Ministries which are administrated by army generals, who have no agricultural knowledge and interest in the agriculture, created this serious problem, said the Manager.
" Burma 's agriculture situation will be worse in 2008 if dismissal of employees and experts continue. Lack of skilled employees and reduction of agricultural experts will create serious problems for the agriculture industry," the manager said.
MAS also held the opening and closing ceremony for paddy cultivation twice while top army officials and regional army officials investigated special paddy fields.
