The Myanmar military government has earned billions from gas projects in the country [AFP]

DBS Group Holdings and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) said in separate statements on Thursday that there was no truth in the report by EarthRights International (ERI).

ERI had said in a document that energy giants Total and Chevron were working in Myanmar on a gas project that allowed the government to put $5bn in the two Singaporean banks.

The report said the authorities had kept the revenues earned from the project off the national budget and put almost all of the money offshore with DBS and OCBC.

False interpretations

"Total and Chevron's Yadana gas project has generated 4.83 billion dollars for the Burmese regime," one of the reports said, adding the figures from 2000-2008 were the first-ever detailed account of the revenues.

"The military [government] are hiding billions of dollars of the peoples' revenue in Singapore while the country needlessly suffers under the lowest social spending in Asia," Smith, told AFP news agency.

But a DBS spokesperson said in the statement: "ERI's report is categorically untrue and without basis."

A spokesperson from OCBC also rejected the report.

French energy company Total also rejected the report, saying that the document was had numerous errors and contained false interpretations.

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