Delivery of Anti-corruption petition (Photo: AP)
Wednesday, May 28, 2008By LAO MONG HAY
UPI Asia Online
Column: Rule by Fear
Hong Kong, China — On May 16, 2006, a petition with over 1 million signatures and thumbprints was presented to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, calling on the assembly to urgently enact an anti-corruption law. The sheer number of people –one out of every 14 Cambodians – who supported the petition campaign with their signature or thumbprint in a period of just over five months, revealed the gravity of corruption in the country and the urgent need for government leaders and lawmakers to take action.
Corruption in Cambodia was already rife, affecting every walk of life, toward the end of the communist regime in the late 1980s. It was and still is prevalent in every public institution everywhere and at every level: in schools, hospitals, fire services, the police, the army, the civil service, the judiciary, the government and the Parliament. It has also ravaged foreign aid given to the country.
In the early 1990s when the communist regime ended, the public called on the government to tackle the problem. In the mid-1990s, civil society began to organize seminars to highlight the issue and urge the government to enact an anti-corruption law. Many national seminars were held, at times presided over by prime ministers or their colleagues, not to mention many smaller meetings.
There were study tours for concerned senior government officials and lawmakers to countries in the region, including Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which are renowned for their effective anti-corruption laws and agencies. In 1998, the newly elected government promised to fight corruption and enact a law against it.
For their part, international donors began to feel the gravity of corruption and its negative impact on the aid they had given to Cambodia, to the tune of some US$500 million a year since the early 1990s. In 2002, together with the Cambodian government, they made the fight against corruption and the enactment of an anti-corruption law one of the benchmarks for the flow of aid.
Under such pressure the government finally submitted to the National Assembly an anti-corruption bill – which had been drafted and redrafted many times, well before the adoption of the U.N. Convention against Corruption in 2003.
Shortly after, this bill was withdrawn, to be redrafted again to bring it up to the convention’s standards. Meanwhile, deadlines set for the enactment of that law have repeatedly passed and the final draft has not yet seen the light of day.
In parallel with the pressure on the government to enact an anti-corruption law, successive studies were undertaken to look into corruption in Cambodia. A 2004 study conducted by the U.S. Agency for International Development in Cambodia showed that corruption cost the government between US$300 million and $500 million in revenue every year, an enormous sum for a poor country.
Another survey conducted two years later by the Economic Institute of Cambodia in Phnom Penh showed that in 2005 the private sector paid “unofficial fees”—that is, bribes – to public officials amounting to US$330 million, an amount it said was “2.5 times higher than that of official payment” and “represented also about 50 percent of the total government budget revenue in 2005.”
A more recent survey conducted by Transparency International showed that 72 percent of Cambodians reported paying a bribe to receive a public service in 2007, a percentage which was then the highest in the Asia-Pacific region and second only to Cameroon (79 percent) internationally. The same survey also showed that the judiciary and the police were viewed as the most corrupt institutions in the country. It should be added that in 2007 Cambodia ranked 162 out 179 countries in the TI Corruption Perceptions Index.
Corruption has affected not only the Cambodian people but also foreign donors on whom Cambodia very much depends. In 1999 there was a corruption scandal at the Cambodian Mine Action Center, an internationally funded government landmine clearance organization. That scandal led to the suspension of foreign aid to CMAC for some time.
In 2003, the World Bank discovered the misuse of funds in a project to demobilize 30,000 soldiers, and forced the Cambodian government to repay the missing money. In 2004, the World Food Program found that US$1.2 million of its aid had gone missing, and forced the Cambodian government to make up for it. In 2006, the World Bank discovered fraud and corruption in three of the projects it was funding. It suspended its funding for these three projects and requested the Cambodian government to make prompt repayment of the missing funds.
In early 2007, within six months after its creation, the internationally funded Khmer Rouge Tribunal encountered allegations of corruption in its human resource management. These allegations led to the introduction of corrective measures for better management.
These are a few of the cases known to the public and acknowledged by the government. Yet in all corruption cases very few, if any, suspected government officials have been brought to justice and made accountable for their corruption. Generally, they have simply been disciplined and removed from office and then, when their cases are no longer in the public mind, they have been reappointed to other, sometimes higher, positions.
Enacting an anti-corruption law and setting up an anti-corruption body may not end what is a common practice in Cambodia. It is nevertheless a significant step toward that end. The Cambodian government must not let its officials indulge in corruption with impunity. It must not continue to break its promises to its people and its foreign donors. It must heed the petition presented to the National Assembly and submit the long promised anti-corruption bill for adoption without further delay.
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(Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)
Corruption in Cambodia was already rife, affecting every walk of life, toward the end of the communist regime in the late 1980s. It was and still is prevalent in every public institution everywhere and at every level: in schools, hospitals, fire services, the police, the army, the civil service, the judiciary, the government and the Parliament. It has also ravaged foreign aid given to the country.
In the early 1990s when the communist regime ended, the public called on the government to tackle the problem. In the mid-1990s, civil society began to organize seminars to highlight the issue and urge the government to enact an anti-corruption law. Many national seminars were held, at times presided over by prime ministers or their colleagues, not to mention many smaller meetings.
There were study tours for concerned senior government officials and lawmakers to countries in the region, including Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which are renowned for their effective anti-corruption laws and agencies. In 1998, the newly elected government promised to fight corruption and enact a law against it.
For their part, international donors began to feel the gravity of corruption and its negative impact on the aid they had given to Cambodia, to the tune of some US$500 million a year since the early 1990s. In 2002, together with the Cambodian government, they made the fight against corruption and the enactment of an anti-corruption law one of the benchmarks for the flow of aid.
Under such pressure the government finally submitted to the National Assembly an anti-corruption bill – which had been drafted and redrafted many times, well before the adoption of the U.N. Convention against Corruption in 2003.
Shortly after, this bill was withdrawn, to be redrafted again to bring it up to the convention’s standards. Meanwhile, deadlines set for the enactment of that law have repeatedly passed and the final draft has not yet seen the light of day.
In parallel with the pressure on the government to enact an anti-corruption law, successive studies were undertaken to look into corruption in Cambodia. A 2004 study conducted by the U.S. Agency for International Development in Cambodia showed that corruption cost the government between US$300 million and $500 million in revenue every year, an enormous sum for a poor country.
Another survey conducted two years later by the Economic Institute of Cambodia in Phnom Penh showed that in 2005 the private sector paid “unofficial fees”—that is, bribes – to public officials amounting to US$330 million, an amount it said was “2.5 times higher than that of official payment” and “represented also about 50 percent of the total government budget revenue in 2005.”
A more recent survey conducted by Transparency International showed that 72 percent of Cambodians reported paying a bribe to receive a public service in 2007, a percentage which was then the highest in the Asia-Pacific region and second only to Cameroon (79 percent) internationally. The same survey also showed that the judiciary and the police were viewed as the most corrupt institutions in the country. It should be added that in 2007 Cambodia ranked 162 out 179 countries in the TI Corruption Perceptions Index.
Corruption has affected not only the Cambodian people but also foreign donors on whom Cambodia very much depends. In 1999 there was a corruption scandal at the Cambodian Mine Action Center, an internationally funded government landmine clearance organization. That scandal led to the suspension of foreign aid to CMAC for some time.
In 2003, the World Bank discovered the misuse of funds in a project to demobilize 30,000 soldiers, and forced the Cambodian government to repay the missing money. In 2004, the World Food Program found that US$1.2 million of its aid had gone missing, and forced the Cambodian government to make up for it. In 2006, the World Bank discovered fraud and corruption in three of the projects it was funding. It suspended its funding for these three projects and requested the Cambodian government to make prompt repayment of the missing funds.
In early 2007, within six months after its creation, the internationally funded Khmer Rouge Tribunal encountered allegations of corruption in its human resource management. These allegations led to the introduction of corrective measures for better management.
These are a few of the cases known to the public and acknowledged by the government. Yet in all corruption cases very few, if any, suspected government officials have been brought to justice and made accountable for their corruption. Generally, they have simply been disciplined and removed from office and then, when their cases are no longer in the public mind, they have been reappointed to other, sometimes higher, positions.
Enacting an anti-corruption law and setting up an anti-corruption body may not end what is a common practice in Cambodia. It is nevertheless a significant step toward that end. The Cambodian government must not let its officials indulge in corruption with impunity. It must not continue to break its promises to its people and its foreign donors. It must heed the petition presented to the National Assembly and submit the long promised anti-corruption bill for adoption without further delay.
--
(Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)
If such laws can be passed and enforced, it will mean that the Hun Xen government is going to the end of the road of corruption. Since 70% of IRI's servey proves that Cambodia is going forwards in the right direction, no way that such laws will exist!
ReplyDeleteIt's like asking Hun Xen to stop being Hun Xen.
ReplyDeleteWow is that possible?????
Without dictator Hun Xen,the corruption law will be 100%.
ReplyDeleteand the dictator Hun Xen will be the same,the corruption law will be noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
So we have to chang the dictator on 27.07.2008.
From time to time I saw some news papers said that PM Hun Sen is an Iron man in the gov. of Cambodia,why he can not do some things to stop corruption for his country.Corruption is very very dangerous than any disease to bring people and the country go to hell by neighbors countries.I hope National Assembly react fast to stop the corruptions like over 1 million signatures have submitted and millions more don't want to see corruption in Cambodia.Thank National Assembly.
ReplyDeleteWE not gonna have coruption laws any time soon as long as MASEAR HUN SEN still in power. if the laws pass he can't cut tree, crab khmer land give it to YOUN,steal money from donor and so on, then he got no money to buy politician from the party or he can't afford to buy GRAMA,SARONG,BECHANG to fool our uneducate farmer.
ReplyDeleteKHMER...
If anyone happens to think that the present government has a will to reduce or stop corruption in Cambodia or reduce poverty he must be deadly wrong.It's in the troubling water that the fisherman can easily catch fishes." La peche dans l'eau trouble". And why would a lot of foreign investors jump in to make money in Cambodia ? Because they too see the same situation. Here is the CPP strategy :
ReplyDelete-As long as the Cambodians stay poor; they can buy votes (with less money)to win the election.
-As long as corruption exists; the CPP members stay rich and strong.
-As long as 100% Vietnamese vote for CPP, it's a 100% win guarantee situation.
CPP mission is to bring the situation back to the 80th which the have got full control of the government and the National Assembly. But this time,O boy! they have done it legally and got plenty of money!!!
It sounds sad but we khmers have to face the reality. ???
fUCK THE 1993 UN ELECTION!
ReplyDeleteCorruption is khmer's culture.It's impossible to stop or eradicate.Corruption is in our blood. Teachers,village chief(mekhum),smean,police,judge,governor, minister,monks,mi chumteav,pdey mi chumteav ,mail carrier, teahean (from general down to corporal ),doctors,nurses, you name it..The only difference is ;the higher position got more (si thom doy thom,si toch doy toch ).Since it's in our blood,there is no cure.
ReplyDeleteEven if the anti-corruption law is there it doesn't meant that corruption will be absolutely gone out the door at all but will only reduce the level of corruption as many of people can't avoid the deadly sin temptation and by the way it is in the our social fabric as long as one can remember - far early then the current RGC.
ReplyDeleteNot corruption, cheating, oppression, rape, tievery, robery, killing ever gone from humen society but we good people need to controle and suppress the bad thing or we all going to be destroy fool!
ReplyDeleteDo not talk like a fool repeck your own parent fool do not borned to be pimpe or parasite!
This is all nonsense politic by ignorant (Dr. Lao et Al). No corruption law can be effective when too many people doesn't have good paying jobs. The only way to minimizing corruption is through a healthy economy and good moral education.
ReplyDeleteSo who is to blame for the unhealthy economy and corruption? It all comes down to Hun Sen.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but the economy is one of the healthiest in the world; therefore, PM Hun Sen should be credited accordingly.
ReplyDeleteYeah and the bloody Viet trollers, parasites, plunderers and cock sucker like yourself @ 4:11AM and again @6:58 AM are so scared of the will and determination of the Cambodian people to get rid of ah Hun Sen's Viet puppet thus deciding to hog and spam KI-Media day and night since day one...You damn Viet parasites including that self-proclaimed Free-thinker Viet's slave arse kisser Klaus Englehart...eh!
ReplyDeleteYou Viet parasites must remember the universal language:
"The world sees and knows the Viet's true color already"
Go home to Hanoi Viet parasite!
Go home to Hanoi Klaus Englehart!
Forget about the national assembly, forget about those MPs they wouldn't dare to debate with their consciences if they have any for this law. Only one man can make it happen, it's Ah Kwak Hun Xen. Since this law will affect them that's why it never happened in the first place. Don't need to analyse this too much save the brain for something else.
ReplyDeleteHey, stop blaming PM for being the most gifted persons in SEA. Blame God who gave him all the talents instead.
ReplyDelete