A factory worker demonstrating against corruption stands by cartoons depicting the endemic disease affecting Cambodia. (Photo AFP)10 June 2006
By Kim Poeuv Sottan
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by KI-Media
Corruption in Cambodia led to a scandal of international proportion when the World Bank recently showed proofs for the very first time exposing the corruption in a number of government ministries.
Sek Borisoth, director of the program to fight corruption of the organization Pact Cambodia, criticized the corruption in Cambodian which keeps on growing everywhere. He said nobody ever saw anyone practicing corruption being punished for corruption.
Sek Borisoth said: “In our country, why do they practice [corruption]? The answer is because it is so easy. Those who practice corruption never receive any punishment. To the contrary, they become richer, they have more, they become happier and they become more powerful because of money.”
There is not a single soul in Cambodia who do know about corruption which is practiced from the top leaders to the low level officials, everywhere, even in schools, in every government departments, bribes must be paid to receive public services, low level government officials pay bribes to obtain promotion. Corruption is flagrant in the wealth of some Cambodian government officials: some receive only US$20 in salary each month but they will show off their enormous fortune, their magnificent mansion. The officials working in the custom department, the police department, and the army department are the most notorious in corruption.
A middle-aged man sitting in a thatched roof hut filled with holes with 6 of his young children, said that it is so disgusting to witness corruption, even the distribution of donation is ridden with corruption. He said he does not even want to talk about the corruption involved in the distribution of land in the Kauk Roka village to the poor people who have been recently displaced from the Sambok Chab village. He said that they (government officials) are corrupt even on petty issues like those above.
He said: “It’s very difficult the corruption, just like Samdech (Hun Sen) said, what can we do to eliminate corruption … corruption is on the rise…”
An anonymous businessman indicated that businesses must pay bribes to obtain any official papers required for conducting business, if not, nothing can move forward even if those businesses honestly pay all necessary taxes to the government.
He said: “Sometimes, even if we pay [taxes] accordingly, they (government officials) are giving us a hard time, they would give excuse that because of exchange rate, the funds in Cambodian currency is not correct because of one reason or another. It all depends on companies, if we have little merchandise, we need to bribe a small amount, but if we have a lot of merchandise, we must pay a lot in bribe to them. If we don’t bribe, all our documents are always at fault. No matter what we do, we just can’t move forward…”
This businessman also revealed the difficulty encountered by unfair competition caused by corruption as some businessmen would collude with custom officials to import goods into the country without paying the full amount of tax required.
He added: “… when the merchandize arrives, some are in collusion with custom officials, for example, if they import 3 lots of goods, they would officially report only 1 lot…”
Le Figaro, a French magazine, published in 2005 that corruption in Cambodia has permeated to the bone, hundred of million of dollars had vanished because of corruption.
More recently, corruption had been exposed again by the World Bank which had investigated the development plans conducted by the Ministry of Land Management, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Public Works, and the Ministry of Rural Development. The total amount of corruption is $7.6 million.
Yim Sovann, (SRP) chairman of the National Assembly committee No. 4, said that this issue is very shameful, and even if Cambodia is ridden with corruption, the corrupt government officials were not brought to justice.
Yim Sovann said: “It is very shameful because corruption is happening everywhere in Cambodia and the government is ignoring it, corruption issues are occurring again and again, and they bring down very significantly the honor of the country. In other countries such as Vietnam and China, corruption is punishable with death …”
Suon Visal, chairman of the bar association, agrees with the above statement that it is true that one almost never witness the punishment of corrupt officials even though the corruption is perpetrated openly such as money extortion by traffic police.
Suon Visal said that corruption is a truth, however because there has never been any punishment, no one believes the planned anti-corruption law will be put into practice. Yim Sovann added: “Even if there is a very good anti-corruption program, if it is not put into use, the problems we are currently facing will remain the same. The important point that I want is the application of [the law] which we already have. Currently, whatever [law] we have, we don’t apply it and we want to bring in a new law to replace the old one. There is no such need because we already have [law] articles which address corruptions, briberies already in the penal code. We should arrest those [who perpetrate corruption] and put them in jail, [put] 2 or 3 of them or 10-20 of them as needed, it would be better …”
Since the first term government (1993-1998) and up to the current government (since 2003), Cambodia is still preparing a draft anti-corruption law.
The government is criticized for this lengthy process [in bringing out the anti-corruption law], as it allows corrupt government officials to perpetrate their act, and these people do not believe that the government has truly the will to fight corruption. However, Keat Chhon, the minister of finance, recently declared at the National Assembly that the government is looking out to find the culprits after the World Bank demanded that the government pay back $7.6 million [lost from government ministry programs].
Sek Borisoth, director of the program to fight corruption of the organization Pact Cambodia, criticized the corruption in Cambodian which keeps on growing everywhere. He said nobody ever saw anyone practicing corruption being punished for corruption.
Sek Borisoth said: “In our country, why do they practice [corruption]? The answer is because it is so easy. Those who practice corruption never receive any punishment. To the contrary, they become richer, they have more, they become happier and they become more powerful because of money.”
There is not a single soul in Cambodia who do know about corruption which is practiced from the top leaders to the low level officials, everywhere, even in schools, in every government departments, bribes must be paid to receive public services, low level government officials pay bribes to obtain promotion. Corruption is flagrant in the wealth of some Cambodian government officials: some receive only US$20 in salary each month but they will show off their enormous fortune, their magnificent mansion. The officials working in the custom department, the police department, and the army department are the most notorious in corruption.
A middle-aged man sitting in a thatched roof hut filled with holes with 6 of his young children, said that it is so disgusting to witness corruption, even the distribution of donation is ridden with corruption. He said he does not even want to talk about the corruption involved in the distribution of land in the Kauk Roka village to the poor people who have been recently displaced from the Sambok Chab village. He said that they (government officials) are corrupt even on petty issues like those above.
He said: “It’s very difficult the corruption, just like Samdech (Hun Sen) said, what can we do to eliminate corruption … corruption is on the rise…”
An anonymous businessman indicated that businesses must pay bribes to obtain any official papers required for conducting business, if not, nothing can move forward even if those businesses honestly pay all necessary taxes to the government.
He said: “Sometimes, even if we pay [taxes] accordingly, they (government officials) are giving us a hard time, they would give excuse that because of exchange rate, the funds in Cambodian currency is not correct because of one reason or another. It all depends on companies, if we have little merchandise, we need to bribe a small amount, but if we have a lot of merchandise, we must pay a lot in bribe to them. If we don’t bribe, all our documents are always at fault. No matter what we do, we just can’t move forward…”
This businessman also revealed the difficulty encountered by unfair competition caused by corruption as some businessmen would collude with custom officials to import goods into the country without paying the full amount of tax required.
He added: “… when the merchandize arrives, some are in collusion with custom officials, for example, if they import 3 lots of goods, they would officially report only 1 lot…”
Le Figaro, a French magazine, published in 2005 that corruption in Cambodia has permeated to the bone, hundred of million of dollars had vanished because of corruption.
More recently, corruption had been exposed again by the World Bank which had investigated the development plans conducted by the Ministry of Land Management, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Public Works, and the Ministry of Rural Development. The total amount of corruption is $7.6 million.
Yim Sovann, (SRP) chairman of the National Assembly committee No. 4, said that this issue is very shameful, and even if Cambodia is ridden with corruption, the corrupt government officials were not brought to justice.
Yim Sovann said: “It is very shameful because corruption is happening everywhere in Cambodia and the government is ignoring it, corruption issues are occurring again and again, and they bring down very significantly the honor of the country. In other countries such as Vietnam and China, corruption is punishable with death …”
Suon Visal, chairman of the bar association, agrees with the above statement that it is true that one almost never witness the punishment of corrupt officials even though the corruption is perpetrated openly such as money extortion by traffic police.
Suon Visal said that corruption is a truth, however because there has never been any punishment, no one believes the planned anti-corruption law will be put into practice. Yim Sovann added: “Even if there is a very good anti-corruption program, if it is not put into use, the problems we are currently facing will remain the same. The important point that I want is the application of [the law] which we already have. Currently, whatever [law] we have, we don’t apply it and we want to bring in a new law to replace the old one. There is no such need because we already have [law] articles which address corruptions, briberies already in the penal code. We should arrest those [who perpetrate corruption] and put them in jail, [put] 2 or 3 of them or 10-20 of them as needed, it would be better …”
Since the first term government (1993-1998) and up to the current government (since 2003), Cambodia is still preparing a draft anti-corruption law.
The government is criticized for this lengthy process [in bringing out the anti-corruption law], as it allows corrupt government officials to perpetrate their act, and these people do not believe that the government has truly the will to fight corruption. However, Keat Chhon, the minister of finance, recently declared at the National Assembly that the government is looking out to find the culprits after the World Bank demanded that the government pay back $7.6 million [lost from government ministry programs].
12 comments:
Even Animals have their leader. So corruption ganster in the Cambodian Governmnet has their big brother.
Pumping machine that sucks the proceeds of the corruption sits at the top of the government. To reduce or eliminate the corruption, one needs to cut the corruption pumping system and the machine.
It's hard to do as the system is well-protected.
When Cambodia still occupied by VN, then Cambodia still have many problem. Why because VN never want Cambodia got peaceful and all Cambodian leader got the VN's brain
It is very sad for the Cambodian people when the corrupt Government uses the State Fund, totalling more than USD 7.00 millions as the repayment to the World Bank to settle the corruption issues involved by the Government officials.
Any amount of State money, even one cent, belongs to every Cambodian. They pay tax on petrol, on medicine, food and everything.
The Cambodian Government(meaning HUN SEN)decided to repay, and is not quite sure about what measures and action to be taken in this matter. This reflects that the entire Government is corrupt to the bone.
No one has ever expected the Cambodian Government to punish any corrupt officials as the organized corruption is master-minded by top government corruption criminals.
To all Cambodians, please continue to enjoy your poverty.
The corruption has been practiced since the area of the COMMUNIST NORODOOM sihanouk at large scale. Since then it worsens. And now with the incredible corruption, the traitor HUN SEN does his best, ON BEHAFT OF THE COLONIALST and IMPERIALIST VIETNAMESE to distroy completely the right mind, the patriotism of our people.
Bang, paone,
With all the comments we can't get anything.
We have to wake up, explain to our family, to friends to prevent HUN SEN from winning the next election and take him and allies to the justice to explain their wealth.
How the democrate opposition could win the next election if THOMICO wants to form his own party and exclude Sam Rainsy?
According to COMITE DES FRONTIERES DU CAMBODGE (http://wms.cfcambodge.org) Sous le Régime Hun Sén et N. Ranaridh (1993 - 1997):
- En mai 1993, l’APRONUC a enregistré 4.764.430 électeurs (de 18 ans et plus) et a estimé la population totale du Cambodge à 8.820.766 d’habitants.
- En 1995, dans le Web Site du Royaume du Cambodge: 10.300.000 habitants.
- En 2000, selon Khmer Intelligence qui cite le Ministère de l’Intérieur : 12 millions habitants.
- Novembre 16, 2003, Khmer Intelligence,, Latest figures from the Interior Ministry show that Cambodia’s population has now reached 13.8 million versus 12 million in 2000.
- En 2005, K.L BINDRA: 13.500.000 habitants dont 4 à 4,5 Millions Yuons.
How we could win The election 2008 if we have YUONS more than half
of the CAMBODIAN.
Yuons surely will vote HUN SEN.
Vietnamization of Cambodia has always been a policy of YUONS'expansionism for nearly 1,000 year.
And, now YUONS are expanding from the heart of the YUON-dominated Cambodian Government of HUN SEN.
YUONS has injected the blood of curruption, criminals, murderers... to spoil the Cambodian spirit from the inside.
In the next 20 to 30 years, there will be no Cambodia anymore. Instead, there will be the UNION of INDOCHINA, under YUONS control.
Stand up Cambodians or You will lose your Identity as Khmers.
Talking about corruption, Hun Sen is the big corrupter. He is the one who practice corruption law himself. He teaches all of his subordinates to be corrupt like him.
Talking about Youn in Cambodia. I heard food or vegetable are poison if you eat raw. I think Hanoi behind this poison. I heard you don't eat out; if you do you will lost your tongue or internal bleeding due to the chemical use in the food. Whose is behind all of these? I think Hanoi again.
We should call Saigon as Prey Nokor. Why Cambodian people calls Saigon when they talk to each other? Do you know Hanoi renamed all the Cambodia provinces and Phnom Penh (Nam Yang)in Youn language. They even printed the new maps with those name changes. We should learn all Cambodia provinces in Kampuchea Krom in Khmer language. Stop using Saigon, Da Nang, etc... If you want to see those province names in Khmer, go to www.khmerkrom.org.
We all should not support any new party. We should support one party, SRP, to win the next election; otherwise, Hun Sen will be in charge or might be his son or daughter in power in the near future. If Ah Hun Sen is in power definetely, Nam Yang will become Hanoi city #2. We should make Youn out of Cambodia sovereignty. Don't let them live in Tonle Sap. Let's get rid of them by burning them. If we keep burning two or three boats they live, they will be out of Tonle Sap soon.
My dearest Khmer compatriots,
We must do anything we can individually or otherwise to get rid of HUN SEN and all the Viets from our Khmer's land before our KHMER race gets wiped out by HUN SEN and the VIETS.
How about national Uprising?
Make plane would you!
good piont..eeyore
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