Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Skimpy Cambodian passport caused grief to Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand

Dear KI,

There are around 100,000 Cambodia immigrants who have worked in Thailand to date. Most of them do not have work permit cards and workers passports (blue color). There are at least two reasons that cause them not to have these documents: cost and illiteracy.

In this e-mail, I would like to focus only on the price and irregularity of those documents. Many immigrants complained that the price of the documents and processes are too expensive. They have to spend around 10,000 Bath or 333 USD to get these documents done. Surprisingly, the passport that is provided by Cambodian authorities has very, very few pages (around 4 pages in total). So, they can make only a few re-entry visas then the pages of the passport will be used up. Again, they have to pay another 1520 Bath or 50.62 USD to have a new book/passport. This is different from passports for Burmese and Laotian immigrants that have up to 20 pages.

With current passport, Cambodian immigrants can make a few re-entry visas only. This is one of the reasons that illegal border crossing is frequently happened. Illegal border crossing causes a lot of imprisonments and casualties so far. Therefore, providing a passport with more pages will reduce some illegal border crossing since there is no one wants to risk their live.

Please note that Cambodian immigrants orally complained this issue (page limitation and cost) to Cambodian competent authorities in Bangkok already, but they have received no respond.

After receiving this e-mail, I greatly appreciate if you could look into this matter at your earliest convenient.

Thank you very much in advance.

Sincerely,

KI Reader

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

US passport is about $100 and last 10 yrs. Khmer gov't is cheating its people.

Anonymous said...

There are bunch of Khmer beggars are now begging everywhere in Thailand, go back to your beloved Scambodia

Anonymous said...

It will a good information to have the Interior Minstry actual required fees for Passport application processing and issuance.

It surely will have the applicants to understand how corruptive the passport office is.

Anonymous said...

what about the recent signed visa-free agreement with cambodia and thailand? that should help ease this restriction, etc.

Anonymous said...

it's not khmer gov't is cheating its people, it's the corrupt official who cheated their people, hello! stop always point fingers at gov't of cambodia. there are a lot of dishonest people working for gov't, you know! let's help to make a difference by report them to the proper authority so they can fire these crooked officials, etc, ok! together, we all can help to make cambodia a better country and a better society, really!

Anonymous said...

i bet you it could happen under any administration, i don't care what they say! it's the individuals they authority needs to put strict penal code to punish them for their dishonest or crooked habit, i think! wake up, people and get educated; it's not the gov't, it the individuals that work for the gov't behind closed door, ok! cambodia ought to come up with a way like an anonymous toll-free telephone number to report such dishonesty, i think, this way, everyone can help to curve and discourage this form of corrupt. take the recent report on "ghost civil servants" or "ghost soldiers", etc still on the payroll, for example. i told you, it's the crooked individuals that make gov't look bad, you know!

Anonymous said...

A gov’t run by corrupt officials is a corrupt gov’t, you know!!! really!!!

Anonymous said...

keep in mind the stupid KR eradicated 3/4 of the civil society in cambodia, so, the new society have to relearn and reconnect to the civil way since after the dumb, idiot KR killed off a majority of civilzed khmer people, you know! i give a lot of credit to the currrent khmer administration for doing their best to renaise cambodia from the ashes done by the crazy neurotic KR regime, you know! so stop the bias against my country cambodia and gov't, ok!

Anonymous said...

Govt has the power to change.If change is its will of RGC,then change can occur.Many incidents related to corruption and impunity,but those have been neglected by the authority and so many have come from people so called authority itself.
It is the quite obvious comment,not any bias.
I hope you should learn to understand their sources of comment.

Anonymous said...

Is it monkeys or people who run the government?

Anonymous said...

Only KR cadres believed the gov’t was not run by people, and they called it ANGKAR LEU.
And those illiterate cadres believed it was some kind of invincible God.

Anonymous said...

that's what you get for keeping people illiterate, ignorant, isolated, etc, etc! wake up already! be civilized for a change, please!

Anonymous said...

Yeah it takes only 3-5 days to get passport in most of the ASEAN countries - Cambodia takes more than a month not to talk about cost. The issue is that there is no public identity processing center. Each entity i.e. passport / id card belongs to Ministry of Interior. Each entity generate their own revenue... If all in one place, space and staff- everything would be fast.