He also argued that the things the armed groups received were only vehicle registrations, not car permits.
Aung Min, a minister at the President's Office of Myanmar, was speaking to reporters at Myanmar Peace Center (MPC) in Yangon on the sidelines of a coordination meeting on the formation of development partners' organisations for rural development.
The number of cars planned to be registered is 1,110 but according unconfirmed sources, the minister said the Road Transport Administration had left 3,000 permits reserved.
Before the minister briefed on a handwritten four-page statement on car registrations for the ethnic armed groups, an MPC official, Aung Naing Oo, gave a prior notice that the media would not be allowed to shoot questions.
"The things we gave to the ethnic armed groups are not car import permits, but car registration permits. In the peace process, we have to make those who are outside the law enter the legal fold. We have granted registrations for their cars which were unlicensed. African leader Nelson Mandela once said, you know. In the peace process, we are not talking with friends. We are talking with enemies. That's why I want to say that we have made the unlicensed cars licensed," said Aung Min.
He also said car permits or registrations could not be granted by the president but they had to be granted after a cabinet meeting.
According to the minister, registrations for the cars owned by ethnic leaders were granted without taxes while their subordinates had to pay 60 percent of the taxes. Such cases also happened under the previous military rule, he said. The number of registrations depended on the size of armed groups, he added.
Thus far, 11,10 cars —370 for the ethnic armed leaders and 740 for their subordinates—had been granted registrations, Aung Min said.
The unlicensed vehicles that had been registered by the government were owned by those ethnic armed groups. Those cars were illegally imported through borders, said the minister.
The Road Transport Administration might have earmarked 3,000 permits in case of further cases. The government had no exact plan to grant 3,000 registrations. The registration permits had been issued by himself on behalf of the government, said Aung Min, also the vice-chairman of the Union Peacemaking Work Committee, which is leading Myanmar's peace efforts.
"Reselling the registered cars is concerned with the owners themselves. Previously, the ethnic armed groups had to rely on extortion money. When peace agreements were signed, our discussion focused on giving up extortion," said the minister.
He also said some groups are found to have stopped extorting money so they might have sold their cars for their living. Granting those vehicle registrations is just a short-term plan and official long-term plans need to be carried out, he commented.
A top official from the Karen National Union (KNU) told media on December 19 that Myanmar president Thein Sein gave ethnic armed groups envelopes containing car permits for peace, which critics have said has resulted in a huge loss of revenues for the country.
source: Eleven Myanmar
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