Government authorities are planned to collaborate with private sectors under Private Public Partnership program to upgrade inland water transportation

The Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunication is planning to run its six departments under the Inland Water Transport Department, they will do this in collaboration with the private sector under the Private Public Partnership program in order to make the departments commercially viable, U Thar Oo, Vice Minister of the Ministry, said at the parliament.

He was responding to the question of U Myint Lwin, a lawmaker of Tontay constituency, who asked the government how it is managing the Inland Water Transport Industry (IWT)—the state-owned business—and wanted to know about the situation of employees in the department, vessels and the pontoon bridges of IWT.

“The Inland Water Transport Department was formed with seven main departments. Now, we have decided to operate 6 sub-departments under the Transport Department—one of seven departments under IWT—cooperating with private partners. We have to run land transportation in a manner that is commercially viable, so we had invited the submission of EOI in 2018 and we received the proposals from 5 companies,”the Vice Minister said.

Five of the six units planned for improvement by partnering with private sectors are the delta region unit, the Ayeyarwaddy River unit, the Chindwin River unit, the Thanlwin River unit, Rakhine State unit and the last one is the freight transport unit, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunication.

The Inland Water Transport has been facing the uncertain future as road and air travel becomes more popular while climate change has reduced rainfall and the rivers have become shallower than before, forcing many of the country’s waterways out of use, the Vice Minister said.

The department says that it has lost nearly K40 billion over the past 11 years and around K5 billion from April to October in 2018.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) suggests that the department is overstaffed and in need of experts and that its assets, including land and buildings, should be commercialized to fund pension payments and payoff the debt.

Actually, in 2013 –2014 fiscal year, the union parliament passed the Inland Water Transport Organization Law allowing the Inland Water Transport Department to run on its own funding.

But, the IWP agency had trouble paying salaries and repaying debts and couldn’t operate by its own funding due to unbalanced income and expenditures. Considering the situation of the department, Union Parliament abolished the Inland Water Transport Organization Law and passed the new Inland Water Transport Law in 2017 bringing back the department under central government funds.

(Myanmar Business Today: https://www.mmbiztoday.com/articles/government-plans-cooperate-private-sector-and-upgrade-inland-water-transportation )

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