MYANMAR RUMOURS SUGGEST SATELLITE TV LICENCE FEE STELLAR HIKE IS BEING REAPPRAISED
January 9th 2008 00:10
While Beijing has its Chinese whispers, Myanmar has rumours, and we’re not talking of Fleetwood Mac cds.
Rumours swirl around Rangoon as incessantly as the city’s incessant flocks of ravens wheel through the sky, silhouetted against the orange orb of the setting sun.
Latest rumours doing the rounds are that the increased satellite television license fees will drastically drop back from Kyat 10 million (US$800) to Kyat 50,000 (US $ 38).
In early January, satellite dish users in Rangoon, who went to pay the annual license fees, complained when they discovered the increased in the fee to Kyat 10 million from 6000 Kyat.
"There are two information spreading now, some said from 6000 Kyat it [the license fee] will increase to 50,000 Kyat. But no body knows the exact information as yet. The telecommunication office said they have not receive any direction on this regard and refuse to accept any license fees," a resident told Mizzima News.
An official at the Yankin Telecommunication office, when contacted by Mizzima, refuse to answer, stating that there has been no official notification or direction on the matter.
However, a Burmese blog site named ‘Dr Lwun Swe’ confirmed the information and said, “Several Rangoon residents have re-install their Satellite Dishes, which they have it down last week.”
Typical of the day-to-day civil disobedience Yangon residents habitually engage in, and which is sadly never reported by mainstream media, most satellite dishes are illegal anyway.
Reporters Without Borders claimed, for example, that while there are 60,000 licenses in Yangon for satellite TV, there are in fact about a million subscribers.
Once again, while the Myanmar government sets a ludicrous official exchange rate of about 6 kyats to the US dollar, nobody actually pays heed to it. The unofficial exchange rate, set organically every day on the streets, hovers between 900 to 1300 kyats to the US dollar and of late the figure’s been tending toward the 1300 kyat range.
MediaBlab, while resident in Yangon in 2004-2005, asked a minor official what would happen if anyone actually went to what passes for a bank in Myanmar and demanded to change money at the official rate of about 6 kyat to the US dollar.
The official replied, “Not even the most stupid of tourists would do that. But if you did, you could possibly be arrested as a subversive element.”
From MediaBlab
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