Maungdaw: Despite the Burmese military junta allocating Kyat 600 lakh as agricultural loans for farmers in Maungdaw District, local district authorities are intending to lend the money to model villagers from 27 model villages instead, said a senior clerk from the district administration office.
 
"The military junta allocated Kyat 600 lakh for our district, but the farmers in our township did not get the loan, because the local authorities arranged to lend the money to model villagers," the clerk said.
 
In addition, the junta has allocated Kyat 2,000 lakh as agricultural loans for all farmers of Arakan State in this agricultural season. From that amount, Kyat 600 lakh has been allocated to Maungdaw District.
 
There are four districts in Arakan State - Sittwe, Kyaukpru, Thandwe, and Maungdaw. The remaining Kyat 1,400 lakh has been set aside for the remaining three districts of the state.
 
"The authorities have collected the list of farms, owned by model villagers in the township. Later, the list will be transferred to the agricultural bank in Maungdaw, to withdraw loans for them," he said.
 
Recently, agricultural loans have been provided by the government's central bank to farmers, through the agricultural bank. However, local authorities in Maungdaw are not distributing the loans to Arakanese farmers in the district.
 
"I think the local authorities do not want to give loans to Muslim farmers, because they are not citizens of Burma. So the authorities have decided to provide the loans to model villagers," the clerk said.
 
According to a local farmer, the authorities are only giving loans to model villagers from Burma proper, and are not providing loans to either Muslims or ethnic Rakhine, Dynet and Khami farmers.