$500k Commune Pledge Will Stem Migration: Sokha

CNRP leader Kem Sokha assured supporters on Friday that his party would follow through with its pledge to provide $500,000 to every commune if it wins next year’s national election in a move he hoped would prevent mass migration from rural areas.

Speaking to hundreds of supporters in Oddar Meanchey province’s Samraong City ahead of the June 4 commune election, Mr. Sokha said it would cost $823 million of the $5 billion national budget to allocate half a million dollars to each of the country’s 1,649 communes.

cam photo no war channa
CNRP President Kem Sokha speaks to opposition members at the party’s headquarters in Phnom Penh in April. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

“I assure our brothers, sisters and compatriots that we have money for this and the money is not Kem Sokha’s money, oknha’s money, or money from any political party but…it’s the national budget,” he told the crowd.

The injection of funds at a local level would stem migration from the countryside, he said.

“We want to see villages, communes flourish, develop into happy, prosperous [places]…where you do not need to migrate if communes have money for development,” he said.

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