SRP Recommendations to the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum

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30 May, 2010

SRP Recommendations to the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum

PHNOM PENH – The Sam Rainsy Party praises and acknowledges the efforts of CDCF mechanism for consulting with development partners and civil society. SRP also praises the goals of the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2009-2013, and acknowledges the progress made in the areas of health, education, child protection and disability since the last consultation in December of 2008.

Despite the hard work on the part of the CDCF partners, work remains in many key sectors.
A crucial first step is to strengthen enforcement of existing legislation and policies. In order to meet Cambodia’s international human rights obligations and to implement the NSDP and the 2008 CDCF Joint Monitoring Indicators(JMIs) in the areas of Health, Education, Agriculture, Land Reform, Good Governance, and the Electoral Process, the RGC should make these additional actions priorities in the next year:

Health: Access to health care for people living below the poverty line can be achieved with the elimination of user fees. Quality of care can be improved with higher investment in training and a living wage for medical staff. The fundamental principles of access to quality health care for the poor must be strictly upheld. Access must be addressed for people with disabilities according to the Disability Law.

Education: The student survival rate in primary schools in the academic year 2007-2008 was only 33.1%. At the secondary and tertiary level, access continues to be unacceptably low, especially for girls, poor children, and the indigenous peoples. As in the health sector, training of teachers and supervisors and adequate living salaries and elimination of all forms of corruption, including school fees must be closely monitored. Human and natural resources must improve: the deployment of teachers must be prioritized, as well as school construction/repair.
Agriculture: The RGC needs to focus on human resources development in rural areas, funding for agricultural technology research, small-scale, decentralized family farms, using mixed crops and combined organic/chemical farming, as well as the development of farmers’ cooperatives employing the youth.

Land Reform: At least 60% of rural families are landless or land-poor. Slow titling of private and indigenous community land has lead to land disputes with economic concessionaires claiming title. Economic Land Concessions that exceed the size allowed under the law are being issued, often before the land is classified and registered as State private property. Lawful possessors are displaced and arrests of villagers are common. Speed of registration of Indigenous Persons communities as legal entities, and titling of land must be increased, and a moratorium on evictions and arrests should be implemented until all land is formally adjudicated according to the law. The RGC should document all ELCs given to-date in a centralized and accessible space. It should also strengthen the independence of the Cadastral Commission and courts at all levels adjudicating land disputes.

Good Governance:

• Public Finance Reform: The public remains uninformed and unheard regarding financial matters, specifically in procurement. An up-to-date debt monitoring system has yet to be implemented, thus publication of debt information should be prioritized in 2010/11 and publications of monitoring statements should be added. Commune Development Funds must be made transparent to the people at the commune level by holding monthly community meetings as defined in the Commune Management Law.
• Access to information: The RGC has drafted the Policy Framework on the Rights Access to Information (August 2007). However, there is a need for a clear mandate and timeframe for the development of this law. Any form of threat and/or intimidation of the public, civil society and opposition MPs against receiving information must be seen as an obstruction to the right to information.
• Anti-corruption: The adopted law does not meet international standards, did not allow for adequate public participation in its drafting, and there remains a lack of clear plans for implementation. Also, no substantial actions have been yet taken towards strengthening education on and dissemination of corruption-related regulations, the cases of corruption of public officials have not been followed-up publicly in a rigorous and systematic way by an independent judicial system, public support and participation is still obstructed in the name of "national security and order", and by anti-corruption mechanisms put in place.
• Legal and Judicial Reform: The RGC should focus on the development of a sound legal framework and modernization of the law, as well as by implementing measures to enhance competence, independence and impartiality of the judiciary.
• Extractive Industry Revenue Management: Measures must be taken to increase transparency in the Extractive Industries, such as reviewing current mining concessions and grants and require all companies to publish licensing information.

Electoral Process: Reforms are still necessary to address problems with the right to vote which begins at the registration stage. The UNDP coordination and efforts to address the shortfalls of past elections should receive wide support.

Gender-Based Violence: Rape cases are increasing at an alarming rate throughout the country. Victims of sexual assaults have limited access to justice. Actions must be taken to help victims break the silence by taking measures to monitor the practice of compensation which is often negotiated and facilitated by local authorities. Gender justice is further hindered by corruption in the judiciary.

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The SRP is an opposition party dedicated to establishing a just and fair society by amplifying the voice of the people. SRP’s position is guided by principles of sustainable and inclusive development that provides a fair share of growth for all Cambodians as of right, not out of charity. To read the full statement, please go to: www.samrainsyparty.org.

Four-Year ‘Good Governance’ Project Begins [-Good governance without anti-corruption law?]

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 April 2009

“This project for fighting against corruption at sub-nation level will not meet with effectiveness and will not be enough ... We want to recommend the government to pass an anti-corruption law, and then we project good governance from the national level down to the sub-national level. This will be effective.” - Ke Sovannaroth, SRP Secretary-general

Cambodia announced a four-year, $25 million project to enhance good governance on Wednesday, seeking to promote the private sector, natural resources, public finance and decentralization.

The project, supported by the World Bank and launched Wednesday by Interior Minister Sar Kheng, will encourage citizens to take greater part in development and governance in the four areas, officials said.

“The project will play an important role in providing capacity-building and strengthening the state of institutions,” Sar Kheng said. The project will also “encourage the implementation of more effectiveness, transparency, accountability and response to the daily needs of people.”

Programs will be put in place at the “sub-national” level to improve administration and reduce corruption and the abuse of power, he said.

The $25.28 million project will be funded mainly through the World Bank, which is providing the bulk of the money, and the Australian Agency for International Development, which is contributing $3.62 million.

Cambodia’s World Bank manager, Qimiao Fan, said the project was “critical” to the country’s fight against corruption and “cannot be allowed to fail.”

He called on officials to ensure the project was “open and transparent,” to benefit everyone in the country. He would be looking at the project’s implementation “personally,” he said.

Not everyone is convinced the idea will work.

Ke Sovannaroth, secretary-general of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said corruption needed to be fought at the national level, including with an anti-corruption law that has been in a draft stage for a decade.

“This project for fighting against corruption at sub-nation level will not meet with effectiveness and will not be enough,” she said. “We want to recommend the government to pass an anti-corruption law, and then we project good governance from the national level down to the sub-national level. This will be effective.”

Good Governance Should Be All-inclusive: Sam Rainsy

Sam Rainsy's letter to the Editor
The Cambodia Daily, November 11, 2008

GOOD GOVERNANCE SHOULD BE ALL-INCLUSIVE

Reports such as "Protests Continue Over ADB's Rice Distributions" (Nov 7, page 29) and "200 Protest as ADB Completes Rice Donations (Nov 6, page 27) reflect three interrelated problems that need to be seriously addressed through a comprehensive approach:

1- The increasing wealth and revenue gap between a political and financial oligarchy and the mass of rural poor, who survive near the starvation line, increasingly relying on handouts, in a country that boasts a relatively high "macroeconomic growth rate."

2- The need to check government corruption and official disdain for transparency and the rule of law that prevails at all levels of the state apparatus, from the Council of Ministers to village chiefs.

3- The absence of decentralization, meaning the failure to put in place procedures that would involve villagers at the grassroots level in decisions that affect their daily lives.

I would like to make a few remarks on the third issue, which few experts, analysts and observers have concentrated their attention on.

The current legislation on decentralization, meaning the devolution of power from the central government to elected local authorities, has existed only on paper since the first commune council elections in 2002.

The opposition SRP collected 25 percent of the popular votes at the last commune council elections in 2007. It has secured commune councillors in 85 percent of Cambodia's 1,621 communes. It has won commune chief positions in 28 communes, first deputy chief positions in 403 communes and second deputy chief positions in 963 communes.

According to the law, the first deputy chief is in charge of finance and budget, and the second deputy chief of public services and security.

However, except for a few SRP-affiliated commune chiefs, elected local officials from the opposition actually have no power whatsoever. The CPP authorities at the national, provincial, district, commune and village levels just ignore them or bypass them, thus stalling any system of checks and balances and making a mockery of decentralisation.

Therefore, in 98 percent of Cambodia's 1,621 commune councils that are headed by a CPP commune chief, the ruling party adamantly refuses to share power with the opposition.

Since the commune councils in turn elect village chiefs, virtually all the country's more than 15,000 village chiefs are also controlled by the CPP.

Village chiefs are like little kings in their respective villages. They are integral parts of both the state apparatus and the CPP machinery. They actually control the population through using and abusing their power in countless activity fields that directly affect the daily lives of villagers.

Political bias is often associated with corruption. Village chiefs select villagers who are entitled to assistance from national and international organizations, including the Red Cross, based on criteria that may have nothing to do with humanitarian considerations.

Regarding the ongoing protests over ADB's rice distributions, it was reported in one of the articles mentioned above that most of the complaints accused village chiefs of "bias and nepotism" in those chosen to receive rice and for excluding others from the beneficiary lists.

By violating the law on decentralization the CPP authorities block democracy at the grassroots level, which allows more and more irregularities and abuses to occur.

If, in each commune, all elected representatives of the people were properly informed, consulted and allowed to play their respective roles according to the law on decentralization and the spirit of democracy, the above problem of food distribution could be avoided. Many other and more serious problems could also be avoided.

The lesson is clear: The Cambodian government and the international donor community alike should abandon their ineffective piecemeal approach and start to solve problems from a comprehensive perspective by meeting conditions that are prerequisites of good governance: effective law enactment, effective decentralization and effective democracy at the grassroots levels.

Sam Rainsy,
SRP President

World Bank chief says Cambodia needs broader-based economy

08.05.07

"Governance and corruption issues are at the front and center of people's agendas .... To be able to continue and strengthen that support it will need to build a positive record and counter the challenge of corruption" - Robert Zoellick

PHNOM PENH (Thomson Financial) - Cambodia's economy is too narrowly focussed on its garment sector, World Bank chief Robert Zoellick said Sunday, suggesting it needs to build on its successes to draw investors to other industries.

'Cambodia has a particular opportunity and need to develop a global brand,' Zoellick said at the end of a two-day visit to the country, which has carved out a lucrative niche by selling itself to buyers as a labor-friendly textile producer.

'It's been able to stay in the game and grow, in part because for some buyers there is special value to the social responsibility that it's included in that industry,' he said.

Cambodia's garment sector continues to expand, employing some 330,000 people in more than 200 factories and accounting for 80 percent of the country's export earnings.

But Zoellick said that this is 'too narrow a base on which to develop' and that to attract other businesses, it was essential for Cambodia to create the right investment climate.

'Cambodia is a small country. It needs to be distinctive to get on the map and I believe it can be distinctive by emphasising its heritage, better labor practices, better transparency, fighting corruption,' he said.

'This is all important if Cambodia is going to draw foreign investment and create jobs.'

Economic growth has been projected at 9.0 percent this year by the International Monetary Fund.

While it continues to expand at a healthy rate, the economy has shrunk from a growth high of 13.5 percent two years ago and relies almost solely on garments and tourism to drive it.

During his visit Zoellick met Prime Minister Hun Sen and held lengthy discussions with other top officials.

His talks here were focussed largely on the bank's continued role in Cambodia, a relationship that has not always been easy.

The government is still paying back millions of dollars that were found to have been stolen from three bank-supported projects last year, forcing their temporary suspension.

'As we tried to make clear from the recent past, we can't be in a position where the money that we are ... devoting to Cambodia gets stolen,' he said.

Cambodia, which also fell foul of the World Bank in 2003, when graft was uncovered in a project to demobilize soldiers, remains one of the world's poorest countries, and last year was ranked 151 out of 163 in Transparency International's corruption perceptions Index.

Zoellick said the government acknowledged its problems with corruption.

'Governance and corruption issues are at the front and center of people's agendas,' Zoellick said.

'Cambodia draws about 690 million dollars a year from international donors, which is no small sum in the world of competitive aid,' he said.

'To be able to continue and strengthen that support it will need to build a positive record and counter the challenge of corruption,' he said.

'This is not just a question of pleasing the external world. It's a question of being fair to the Cambodian people ... and that means making sure that, whether it be foreign aid or government revenue, [money] is spent appropriately.'

Sam Rainsy visits Pursat province and meets with hundreds of villagers

July 17, 2007 , Pursat province (in northwest Cambodia ). Sam Rainsy meets with hundreds of villagers to denounce the current government that treats citizens as beggars, and to elaborate on good governance in the fight against poverty.