GRAPE VINE
LOOK OUT! SPDC is eyeing on your dollars
The cashed-starved junta made one more step to rob the hard-earned money from its own people working abroad.
Recently they introduced a new foreign employment act. It stated that any person who is currently working abroad must make the agreement with the labour department in the presence of his parents or any two guarantors once they came back home for short-term visit.
This agreement stipulate this person to remit half of his total earnings to government-controlled foreign exchange bank. This bank will issue the equivalent foreign exchange certificate(FEC) to the person authorised by him. This agreement will not exempt him from paying the monthly income tax (10% of the salary) to his respective embassy.
This news is rattling the Burmese communities in foreign soil. It added to their existing impotent furies. Normally these people are docile and thought they would not be disturbed by the military regime. Now this regime is threatening their livelihood directly. Their feeling of security is shattered.
One of the Burmese workers said that "I earned only $450 per month.How can I send half of my salary to family? What can I do with another half in this alien land? They never bother to take care of us when we are in trouble. I have to go to work,rent a place to stay,feed myself. They must be crazy".
But he knew that he had been left with no choice but to accept their terms.
The burmese government could not enjoy the revenue from the remittance like Phillipine because of abnormally rate of foreign exchange against US dollar and its own people's distrust.
