Council of Ministers Approves Sub-Decree To Manage State Land
By Erik Wasson and Yun Samean
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
The era of freewheeling transfers of government land and properties to private firms, which critics say has lost the state an untold amount of money, may have come to an end, according to a document obtained Tuesday.
The Council of Ministers on Nov 27 approved a sub-decree governing the management sale, transfer and exchange of state land that is aimed at bringing in official streams of revenue from the undisclosed deals, according to a copy of the sub-decree.
The legislation decrees that state public property—defined as that being used by the state or transferred to public bodies such as universities—cannot be sold, exchanged or transferred.
Instead, with the permission and oversight of the Finance Ministry, these properties can be leased for up to 15 years. According to the sub-decree, there must be an open bidding process if two or more parties are interested in obtaining state property.
State private property, which is state property being used neither by the state nor public institutions and can include forests or unused state land, will now be subject to Finance Ministry oversight, the sub-decree states.
Such property must also undergo public bidding if it is to be leased out or sold.
The legislation also calls for the establishment of a State Properties Control Authority at the Finance Ministry, which will have nine months to review and amend previous leases of state property.
But the legislation may be too little, too late. Cambodia has seen an avalanche of state land and property transfers in recent years.
The Interior Ministry's logistics department located in the same block as the Royal Palace, the Royal University of Fine Arts' North Campus, T3 prison, Preah Monivong Hospital, Phnom Penh Municipal Police Headquarters, PJ prison, the Monivong Hospital, the foreigner police department, the technology institute on Russian Boulevard—to name just a few—were swapped to private developers in exchange for newer buildings on far less valuable land.
The swaps were also replicated in numerous provinces: Siem Reap, Battambang, Sihanoukville, Kompong Cham and possibly elsewhere.
SRP lawmaker Son Chhay said state interests have been greatly damaged by the swaps and that a law containing criminal punishments should have been passed instead of a sub-decree.
The sub-decree allocates no punishments for those who breach it.
"These secret deals have been controlled by individuals in the ministries in charge of the properties and [have] extracted funds for other purposes than the interest of the state," Son Chhay said.
"[Land swaps] will continue because this new sub-decree will be easily manipulated," he said.
Commenting on the sub-decree, government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said by telephone that "some ministries have made some mistakes."
"The sub-decree will help the national property transfer and selling be transparent," he said.
Ouk Rabun, the Finance Ministry secretary of state in charge of state property, declined to comment on the new legislation.
Henry Hwang, a legal adviser for the Community Legal Education Center, wrote in an e-mail that the sub-decree has the potential to bring some order to the "seemly rampant sale, exchange and leasing of state properties that we currently see."
But he added that given recent experience, he was not overly optimistic that it would be effective.
"[T]he sub-decree on economic land concessions that was just passed at the end of last year had similar provisions to this current sub-decree, but we've seen those routinely ignored throughout this year," he wrote.
The Council of Ministers on Nov 27 approved a sub-decree governing the management sale, transfer and exchange of state land that is aimed at bringing in official streams of revenue from the undisclosed deals, according to a copy of the sub-decree.
The legislation decrees that state public property—defined as that being used by the state or transferred to public bodies such as universities—cannot be sold, exchanged or transferred.
Instead, with the permission and oversight of the Finance Ministry, these properties can be leased for up to 15 years. According to the sub-decree, there must be an open bidding process if two or more parties are interested in obtaining state property.
State private property, which is state property being used neither by the state nor public institutions and can include forests or unused state land, will now be subject to Finance Ministry oversight, the sub-decree states.
Such property must also undergo public bidding if it is to be leased out or sold.
The legislation also calls for the establishment of a State Properties Control Authority at the Finance Ministry, which will have nine months to review and amend previous leases of state property.
But the legislation may be too little, too late. Cambodia has seen an avalanche of state land and property transfers in recent years.
The Interior Ministry's logistics department located in the same block as the Royal Palace, the Royal University of Fine Arts' North Campus, T3 prison, Preah Monivong Hospital, Phnom Penh Municipal Police Headquarters, PJ prison, the Monivong Hospital, the foreigner police department, the technology institute on Russian Boulevard—to name just a few—were swapped to private developers in exchange for newer buildings on far less valuable land.
The swaps were also replicated in numerous provinces: Siem Reap, Battambang, Sihanoukville, Kompong Cham and possibly elsewhere.
SRP lawmaker Son Chhay said state interests have been greatly damaged by the swaps and that a law containing criminal punishments should have been passed instead of a sub-decree.
The sub-decree allocates no punishments for those who breach it.
"These secret deals have been controlled by individuals in the ministries in charge of the properties and [have] extracted funds for other purposes than the interest of the state," Son Chhay said.
"[Land swaps] will continue because this new sub-decree will be easily manipulated," he said.
Commenting on the sub-decree, government spokesman and Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said by telephone that "some ministries have made some mistakes."
"The sub-decree will help the national property transfer and selling be transparent," he said.
Ouk Rabun, the Finance Ministry secretary of state in charge of state property, declined to comment on the new legislation.
Henry Hwang, a legal adviser for the Community Legal Education Center, wrote in an e-mail that the sub-decree has the potential to bring some order to the "seemly rampant sale, exchange and leasing of state properties that we currently see."
But he added that given recent experience, he was not overly optimistic that it would be effective.
"[T]he sub-decree on economic land concessions that was just passed at the end of last year had similar provisions to this current sub-decree, but we've seen those routinely ignored throughout this year," he wrote.
2 comments:
The CPP and its friends saw this coming because they were slowly preparing it to give themselves sufficient time to swap state lands like crazy. Ministry of Finance and Council of Ministers are the biggest perpetrators in such deals. That nice public park in front of the main railway station is gone, so are the lands near and around the Olympic Stadium.
Even if this sub-decree comes into effect, they have already prepared a loop hole when they drafted it. It will be business as usual under another disguise.
They are pretending to do something but in reality nothing is done to strengthen it; especially from now until the election time, because the CCP needs more money to bride poor people in the countryside. Oh the money from gasoline smuggling too and high prices at retail.
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