Myanmar’s shadow government plans US$300 million vaccination drive to cover ‘20 per cent of population’
- Tin Tun Naing, finance minister of the National Unity Government, says the group is taking a ‘pragmatic approach’ by working to vaccinate residents in rebel-held areas
- The shadow administration hopes a clandestine online lottery and global crowdfunding will help raise an initial US$700 million for humanitarian aid and arming the resistance force
The National Unity Government’s (NUG) finance minister Tin Tun Naing told This Week in Asia in a recent interview that the effort would first focus on areas not under the full control of the military, and was expected to cost US$300 million.
The NUG, comprising activists and lawmakers loyal to the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD), has the backing of several armed ethnic groups that control sizeable amounts of territory.
Tin Tun Naing said the shadow administration was “thinking pragmatically” and would first undertake the vaccination effort via the health departments of these ethnic armed groups.
The NUG’s vaccination effort would cover about 20 per cent of the country’s population, or nearly 11 million people, Tin Tun Naing said.
This Week in Asia understands that the NUG will seek assistance from international organisations, including United Nations-linked agencies, to carry out its vaccination programme.
The NUG official, speaking via video link, said detailed plans on the allocation of funds to other causes and ministries in the NUG would be released later this month.
The NUG has previously said it was launching a US$700 million budget to support the fight against Covid-19, provide aid to workers striking in protest against the coup, and for other humanitarian aid.
It said foreign funding – primarily from the Burmese diaspora – as well as an online lottery were the main sources of revenue for now.
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In the interview, Tin Tun Naing did not reveal the full amount raised so far, but said some US$9 million had been raised from a campaign on gofundme.com, with another US$7.4 million raised from “raffle tickets and other fund raisers”.
He said efforts remained under way to retrieve state funds held in the United States, but offered no other details on this initiative.
Tin Tun Naing also hailed the success of the NUG’s “Victorious Spring” lottery, which is expected to earn the group more than US$8 million a month following its launch in August. The initial tickets sold out in just over an hour when they launched on September 15.
Seventy per cent of the lottery proceeds will be channelled to workers who are on strike, while 30 per cent will be reserved for winners.
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Tin Tun Naing, elected as an MP in Myanmar’s 2015 and 2020 elections, rebuffed questions on whether the funds would be put to good use, saying that donors “know where to donate, and where their donations go”.
Amid some concern about whether lottery participants might be targeted by the junta, the NUG official said the group had taken measures to ensure that this would not happen. “The NUG does not have bank accounts tied to the lottery… the encrypted platform links striking employees in need directly to the lottery funds… while concealing their respective identities,” he said.
Tin Tun Naing’s interview last Thursday came amid increasing interest over the NUG’s plans, after its de facto leader, lawyer Duwa Lashi La, on September 7 urged supporters to back a nationwide “people’s defensive war” against junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s forces.
Myanmar residents, especially the youth, are widely seen as overwhelmingly in support of the NUG, but the shadow administration has faced criticism for appearing to be focused more on releasing public statements and speaking to the media than on solid action.
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Suu Kyi and other senior NLD figures have been in military detention since the February 1 coup.
Tu Hkawng, the NUG’s minister for natural resources and environmental conservation, on Tuesday took to Facebook to respond to supporters’ questions for the shadow government.
Asked how funds raised were being used, the minister said they were partly going toward weapons and “training expenses”.
He said the NUG planned to arm local units of the People’s Defence Forces in each of Myanmar’s 330 townships. “Even if you want to give [just] 100 guns per township, we would need 33,000 in total,” he said, adding that the administration required far more funds for its armed resistance effort.
