L Phaung Sho
1 December 2020
The National League for Democracy (NLD) came to power in 2016 promising to root out corruption in Myanmar. Two NLD chief ministers have been toppled for skimming public funds. This gives the impression that NLD is not protecting its members from public scrutiny..
L Phaung Sho, deposited hundreds of millions of kyat of public money into his private account and spent a large part of it on himself. In 2018 the Anti-Corruption Commission failed to act on a complaint about him regarding his use of funds from leasing heavy machines. L Phaung Sho is a former Chief Minister of Kayah State in the east of Myanmar.
More than three quarters of lawmakers in Kayah state’s parliament voted on Tuesday to impeach L Phaung Sho. It was also alleged that the chief minister repeatedly failed to follow a motion agreed by MPs to keep a three-acre plot of land public and not lease it to private companies. But he gave approval for restaurants, sport centres, water factories and bungalows to lease the land, the team said. It is not clear whether he personally benefited from the lease.
After L Phaung Sho applied for a review of the Kayah state Hluttaw’s handling of the case, Myanmar’s constitutional tribunal will hold a hearing to decide if accusations that led to his impeachment were admissible under the country’s 2008 constitution.
Former chief minister L Phaung Sho was reelected in his Mese constituency No. 2 with the support of 74.4 percent of voters in the recent state election.
The other chief minister to be investigated was Lei Lei Maw, the former NLD chief minister for Tanintharyi. She was jailed in May for 30 years. She sold her house for well above market value to a company that she awarded several lucrative public contracts in return.
