12 June 2026 By Cherry May
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s military junta has announced a sweeping legal and administrative crackdown against ordinary citizens over nationwide electricity losses, shifting the blame for the country’s decaying power grid onto the public despite five years of institutional mismanagement since the 2021 coup.
The Ministry of Electricity and Energy published a directive across state-controlled newspapers on Friday, 12 June, vowing to execute severe criminal prosecutions and rigorous structural inspections to curb what it defined as “dishonest activities and human malpractice” within the power distribution sector.
The regime’s official text revealed that approximately 18.38% of all domestically produced electricity—amounting to a staggering 3.559 billion units (kWh)—is systematically lost every year during transmission and distribution.
While independent engineers attribute the vast majority of these losses to obsolete infrastructure and a total lack of maintenance, the ministry insisted that “human interference” and illegal tapping are primary drivers.
The directive ordered civilians to immediately halt any personal adjustments to local lines, instructing neighbors to act as informants by reporting suspected electricity theft to regional security administrators.
However, residents inside Yangon and Mandaly note that the regime has actively forced the population into legally precarious situations. Bureaucrats have completely frozen the distribution of new household electricity meters for nearly four years, leaving thousands of newly built homes with zero legal access to the grid.
“The township electricity offices simply refuse to issue new meter boxes; they have relied exclusively on recycling broken, old stock for years,” a municipal source close to the Shwepyitha Township electrical office told MPA.
“Because families are completely denied the right to buy a new meter, multiple households are forced to share a single legal connection under private agreements to split the monthly bill. If the military actually initiates random house-to-house raids, thousands of innocent citizens will be trapped and extorted.”
The junta’s electricity ministry noted that its upcoming technical inspections and “anti-theft operations” will require immediate, prolonged blackouts across both central and ethnic border sub-regions.
In the military capital of Naypyidaw, authorities announced a total power shutdown for Saturday, 13 June, completely severing electricity to government ministries, urban quarters, and surrounding rural villages across the Ela and Thawatti sectors.
Concurrently, a massive black-out has been scheduled across southern Shan State to evaluate transmission lines stretching between Taunggyi, Hopong, and Mongpawn. The regional maintenance freeze will leave 106 villages—including major urban clusters within the self-administered Pa-O Self-Administered Zone—completely in the dark throughout Saturday and Sunday.
Since the military takeover, regular electricity supplies have entirely collapsed across Myanmar, with major economic hubs restricted to volatile, rolling power schedules.
By converting a structural engineering deficit into a legal hunt for “saboteurs,” independent economic monitors warn that the junta is simply seeking a fresh administrative weapon to terrorize urban communities while masking its absolute failure to operate the country’s core utility infrastructure.
