Cambodia's ruling party pushes through anti-graft law

Thu, 11 Mar 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's parliament on Thursday passed an anti-corruption law that the opposition has criticized as flawed and politically biased. Earlier on Thursday the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) quit the parliamentary debate. SRP legislator Son Chhay said that the party's suggested amendments had been repeatedly ignored, including one to ensure the assets of senior government figures were made public.

"This is a bad day for the country - we have waited so long for a mechanism to fight corruption," he said. "We have at least 45 per cent of the population living below the poverty line, and we have a handful of families who become billionaires while there are so many who are starving."

The law was voted through by members of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which holds a two-thirds majority in parliament. No government spokesman was available for comment.

Cambodia is regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and donors and civil society have called since 1995 for a law to tackle graft.

The proposed text, as passed by parliament, states that politicians, military personnel, police, judges, civil servants and the heads of civil society organizations must disclose their wealth to the anti-corruption body, which is to keep that information private.

Yong Kim Eng from the Coalition for Integrity and Social Accountability, a civil society group against corruption, said one weakness in the law is that most members of the two anti-corruption agencies would be hand-picked by the ruling party or Prime Minister Hun Sen.

"I don't think this can be independent," he said.

The draft was made public on March 4, leaving just four days for opposition legislators and civil society groups to study its provisions before the vote on Thursday.

That brief time frame drew condemnation from civil society and the United Nations, which has been deeply involved in the process since 2004. The UN called unsuccessfully on Wednesday for the government to allow more time to ensure debate by all interested parties.

The UN refused further comment Thursday once parliament had passed the law, which now proceeds to the Senate for approval.

The international corruption watchdog Transparency International placed Cambodia in lowly 158th place last year, on a par with the Central African Republic and Laos. Just 19 nations were ranked as more corrupt.

The US ambassador to Phnom Penh outraged the government in 2009 when she cited a number of studies indicating that corruption costs the impoverished nation up to 500 million US dollars annually.