Lawmakers Debated on a Draft Anti-Corruption Law

Lawmakers Debated on a Draft Anti-Corruption Law
Ratana Seng
19/08/2005

Seng Ratana report
Map of Cambodia

Lawmakers debated Friday a draft anti-corruption law that fails to
require the government's top officials to declare their assets and
sources of income.

While the draft law does require lower-level government officials to
make public disclosures about their wealth and incomes, the omission of
top officials to the same requirement alarms some lawmakers and civil
society advocates.

The long-awaited draft law - for years encouraged by international
donors that fund approximately half of the government's expenses, but
which the government failed to take action on - will be revised by
officials at the Ministry of Parliamentarian and Senatorial Relations
and Inspections before being sent back to the floor of the National
Assembly for continued debate, lawmakers said.

The draft law's aim is for increased transparency among government
officials, with the goal being a reduction in the illicit earning of
money. Corruption is one of the most significant problems plaguing
Cambodia in the post-communist era, the World Bank, the U.N. and Prime
Minister Hun Sen agree.

However, the Hun Sen and his ruling ministers have done little of
substance to combat the problem.

The draft law calls for senators, national assembly members, government
employees and military officials should make their assets public,
lawmakers said.

Mao Sophan and Ty Lum Ang, lawmakers from the Funcinpec party, said the
law should be revised to include all top government officials,
including the head of state, a reference to the king, and to the prime
minister, deputy prime ministers and judges.

Son Chhay, an opposition party lawmaker, asserted the law would be
''ineffective'' if it did not require wives and children of top
officials to reveal their income sources, because family members can be
used as easy ways for corrupt officials to hide earnings.

Chan Cheng, a National Assembly member from the opposition Sam Rainsy
Party, emphasized that disclosures should be made publicly - not in
secret - and that most ministers and secretaries of state are today
corrupt, using their positions of power to generate money for personal
gain, rather than for the government.

CPP lawmaker Try Cheang Huot declined to comment on the proposed law.
CPP officials dominate the government and are able to impose their will
when matters of importance arise.

Sok Sam Oeun, president of the Cambodia Defenders' Project, said that
whatever lawmakers and the government ultimately decide to put in the
law, he expressed skepticism whether the government would enforce the
law - for instance, he doubted whether the country's top officials
would comply with a law that ordered them to publicly disclose their
assets and income sources every two years.

The law discussed Friday was an amended version of a draft law
discussed in 2003.

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