Myanmar vice-president 2 U Henry Van Thio asked the Chin State government of civilian requests during his tour in southern Chin State in April 2019.

Vice-president’s inquiry came after a Chin State Hluttaw representative U Aung Lian took Facebook to criticize the Chin State government over its exclusion of some development projects from the 2019-2020 budget.

“The development projects I had proposed to vice-president have been excluded from State budge. I posted about this issue on Facebook and Chin World Media also quoted the post. I think the vice-president saw my post. He asked Chin State government to send him a list of civilian requests during his southern Chin State tour in April. And Chin State government spokesperson U Soe Htet called me to send a list of development projects I requested to the vice-president,” U Aung Lian said.

During vice-president’s tour in southern Chin State, U Aung Lian and Matupi residents proposed several development projects which include to improve Matupi-Lailenpi road into gravel road, to upgrade Matupi-Kanpetlet road, to build safety handrail across Bungtla Waterfall, to rebuild Mindat-Paletwa road, and to allocate a bigger budget to Kanpetlet, Paletwa and Mindat townships.

“Vice-president noticed U Aung Lian’s post on social media and asked me to conduct a further inquiry of which specific project U Aung Lian implied. I reached out U Aung Lian and he told me about the development projects he had proposed to vice-president. I explained to him that 2019-2020 budget has already been confirmed and that while some projects are handled by State government, others are by the Union government,” U Soe Htet said.

U Aung Lian stated that by the order of the vice-president, Chin State government has approved the budget proposal for Hakha-Hmaandaw road construction while other projects we proposed to vice-president have been left out of 2019-2020 Chin State budget.