"Myanmar’s auditor general is unable to probe a $2m-a-year military real estate deal because a law drafted by the former junta shields the defence ministry from scrutiny, a senior official has said. Two military offices are leasing a plot of land to a company for a luxury hotel project, Myanmar Now reported last month, but the money does not appear in the defence budget. Naing Thet Oo, permanent secretary of the auditor general’s office, said at a press conference in Nay Pyi Taw on Monday that her office had no power to audit the deal. “It’s not in our jurisdiction,” she said, responding to a question from Myanmar Now. “We don’t have the right to do it.” The Union Auditor General Law was drafted in 2010 by the State Peace and Development Council. It gives the auditor general the powers to investigate the finances of every other government ministry. Section 39, at the very end, reads: “the provisions contained in this Law shall not apply to the Ministry of Defence.” With its overwhelming majority in parliament, the NLD-led government could easily scrap the law. “There is no good reason, in principle or in practice, for the military to be exempt from any state oversight mechanism,” said Chris Sidoti, a lawyer who worked on a UN fact-finding mission that investigated the military’s business ties last year. “Why should it be? The military is as much a part of the state structure as any other state agency and should be subject to exactly the same kind of oversight and regulation,” he told Myanmar Now..."