President Htin Kyaw has accepted the resignations of four ministers in the cabinets of the Bago and Magwe governments, bringing to at least seven the number of ministers from state and regional administrations to depart their posts so far this year.

Magwe Region’s Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Soe Myint and the minister for Labour, Immigration and Population of the same region, Nay Myo Kyaw, were “permitted to resign of their own volition,” according to an official announcement from the President’s Office dated 10 January.

Kyaw Min San, the minister for Natural Resources, Environmental Protection and Forestry of Bago Region, told DVB that he and Maung Maung Lwin, the municipal minister of the same cabinet, had also tendered their resignations on Wednesday

The president accepted the resignation of Mahn Johnny, chief minister of Irrawaddy Region, as well as that of Ba Hein, the regional government’s minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources, on Tuesday.

Early this month, the municipal affairs minister for Rakhine State was voted out of office by lawmakers at an emergency session of the state legislature, with a large majority of MPs voting to remove him from the post for a “failure to perform his duties.”

Local media have reported that health reasons are the motivation for at least some of the more recent departures.

One government official who has insisted that he is not yet headed for the exits is Nyi Pu, the Rakhine State chief minister.

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“The news about me resigning from the office is all false,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “The false news left everyone confused. That is not good. It would be beneficial if people could post accurate news on Facebook.”

His remarks may have been in response to a Facebook account that was not verified but claimed to represent the State Counsellor Office Information Committee. The apparently bogus account recently posted the purported resignations of Mahn Johnny and Nyi Pu.

As cabinet reshuffle rumours have swirled, a spokesperson for de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s Office of the State Counsellor, Zaw Htay, took to Facebook on Tuesday to advise his followers to heed the “blue ticks” that denote recognition by the social media site of accounts that have been verified as official.