Ba Htay ( my, ဘဌေး, ) was a Burmese businessman, administrator, the Chairman of the Multi-Party Democracy General Election Commission and one of the pioneers of the now-extinct

Scouting Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement employing the Scout method, a program of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking ...

movement in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

Biography

He was the eldest of three sons. He was born to well-known lumber merchants and builders in

Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is the former capital of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located in the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing with numerous Buddhist monasteries is an important religious and ...

, and his wife, Daw Lay Khin of Pekadoe Village in Sagaing in 1906.Suryadinata, Leo (2012). Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume I & II. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. pp. 1227–1228. . Ba Htay represented the

Union of Burma Boy Scouts The Myanmar Scout Association (''formerly known as the Union of Burma Boy Scouts'') is the national Scouting organization in Myanmar. Scouting in Myanmar was started in 1916 and disbanded in 1964 due to country's political changes; the current or ...

and was elected one of the very earliest chairmen of the five-man ''Far East Scout Advisory Committee'' (FESAC), which would later become the Asia-Pacific Region, and served from 1958 to 1960. Ba Htay started his career as a tutor at

Rangoon University '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

, for a brief period. He later became

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million ...

(ICS), and was referred to as ''ICS U Ba Htay'', one of very few elite administrators in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

. He held such posts as Commissioner of

Settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building * Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...

and Land Records, Financial Commissioner, and Chairman of

Burmah Oil Company The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company which was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed "Burmah-Castrol". BP Amoco (now BP) purchased the company in 2000. History ...

, when the government took over 51% of the shares from the BOC.

Retirement

After

retirement Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

in 1963, he was brought back into public life as the Multi-Party Democracy General Election Commission in 1988, after nationwide protests included demands for a free and fair election. Election was held in Burma (Myanmar) on 27 May 1990 and

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from ...

National League for Democracy The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; Abbreviation, abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanm ...

(NLD) won by landslide.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ba Htay Scouting pioneers 2000 deaths Burmese civil servants Scouting and Guiding in Myanmar Burmah-Castrol BP people People from Sagaing Region 1906 births