Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday ordered fishery officials to take thousands of hectares in five fishing lots in Siem Reap province away from private bidders and open them for public use.
He said he had received complaints that fishery officials were not marking lot borders properly and that the people were being prevented from fishing in areas where they should be allowed to fish.
“Those officials took money from the fishing companies,” Hun Sen contended in a speech broadcast from Siem Reap province on Apsara radio.
“This group is so corrupt. Fishing officials have become the leaches that suck the people’s blood.
“I have made policy before, but the officials below did differently, and the people curse me.”
Fishermen are regularly in Phnom Penh to protest in front of the National Assembly, claiming lot owners are keeping them from fishing in ancestral fishing grounds.
Ly Kim Han, director of the Fisheries Department for the Ministry of Agriculture, defended his department and said he would resign if the government found his actions were wrong.
“Hun Sen thought of the people,” Ly Kim Han said. “But we thought of the technical [portions] of the law. He is a politician and we are the technical workers.
“I will explain why the law cannot be changed. After my explanation, if they think that I am wrong, they can remove me. But I want the fish to [keep] existing.”
Ly Kim Han said he and the prime minister agree on the fishing regulations for 80 percent to 90 percent of the fishing lots. Ly Kim Han said he can open some of the disputed fishing areas, but not as many as the prime minister ordered.
The prime minister has told officials he wants to shrink private fishing lots as much as possible by next April.
He complained that it wasn’t being carried out, and that he could make the official decision himself “without a meeting of the Council of Ministers.”
