The Ministry of Ethnic Affairs has been authorized to assist in ethnic literature, culture, traditional customs, and drafting of curricula for ethnic literature.  

“The Hluttaw Speaker turned down my three questions on whether the budget has been raised in order to raise the budget for ethnic literature and culture. I don’t know why they were turned down. I feel quite uneasy after they were turned down like this. It’s questionable whether [the government] care about ethnic people,” said Kayah State Hluttaw MP U Thae Reh from Hpruso Constituency – 1.

The Ministry of Ethnic Affairs was only allocated 0.2 percent of the union budget for the 2017-2018 fiscal year and it only receives Ks 54.845 million in the Kayah State’s budget, ranking among the bottom of the list.

The Road Department receives the highest budget allocation with Ks 19 billion followed by the Municipal Department with Ks 6.037 billion in the Kayah State.

Since the ministry is not authorized to carry out the development of ethnic people, it only receives the least amount of budget.

“The Ethnic People Protection Law has been released. When this law was released, it states that [the ministry] can only protect the rights of the ethnic people. Also, [the ministry was only authorized] to uplift literature and culture. Since the development of ethnic people was not included, the ministry was prevented from using the budget,” said U Khun Aye Maung, Kayan Affairs Minister of the Shan State.

Ethnic affairs ministers will try to uplift the role of ethnic people and amend the law when they meet.

Bamar Affairs Minister U Hla Myo Swe of the Kayah State said the ethnic affairs ministers have not raised questions or submit to the Hluttaw but they are carrying out many tasks that are related to ethnic people on the ground.

“We have carried out many tasks. We have worked on literature issue of six literature groups, and curriculum issue. We are also cooperating with experts from other departments for this budget issue and striving to carry out the tasks,” he said.

He added that he has given priority to the tasks that are based on the Ethnic Rights Protection Law as he does not need to strive hard in carrying out the tasks since he is a Bamar representative and the basic law known as ‘mother law’ already exists.

Ethnic people have received the right to learn ethnic literature, which they were not allowed to learn under the previous administration, draft curriculum, and expose their own literature and culture due to the efforts of the ethnic affairs ministers.

However, the ethnic representatives want the government to allocate budgets for literature festivals and traditional festivals of ethnic people so they want the Hluttaw to give consideration to ethnic affairs, U Thae Reh said.

The Ministry of Ethnic Affairs does not have assigned staff like other departments so the financial staffs do not allow it to use the budget, according to Minister U Khun Aye Maung.