The government has launched its “War on Corruption,” but the battle front appears yet to have reached the five traffic police officers stationed outside Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh house on Sunday afternoon.
In a typical day, the officers said, they stop and fine about five or six motorists for traffic violations, which help their $20 per month salaries.
An average fine is 2,000 riel per motorbike and about $1.25 per car. Of that, the officers are legally allowed to take home 30 percent, they said. But asked whether they ever demand extra money for personal use, one officer, who declined to be named for fear of reprimand, answered: “We have, sometimes.”
Hun Sen declaration of war on corruption Friday comes amid warnings from international donors that Cambodia must clean up its act to receive further aid.
But with corruption pervading almost all aspects of life in Cambodia—including the petty bribery occurring just outside his front door—some say Hun Sen is up for a tough fight.
“I think it will be a really difficult task for somebody to want to eradicate or fight against corruption in Cambodia. It has become institutionalized,” Kek Galabru, founder of the rights group Licadho said Sunday.
Even the prime minister’s “close friends or close family” might become targets of his so-called war, she said. “You cannot arrest only the small fishes and leave the big ones [alone].”
Hun Sen has often vowed to eliminate corruption and government misdeeds, particularly surrounding Consultative Group meetings, when international donors pledge aid. And with another CG meeting scheduled for December, Kek Galabru said, the prime minister’s latest declaration comes right on time.
“The donors might be very satisfied, but now we would like to see the fact,” she said.
For starters, observers suggested, the prime minister should push for the adoption of a long-awaited anti-corruption law. That law should require government officials to divulge their personal properties, said Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodia Defenders Project. An additional “access to information act” should also be adopted, he said.
In his speech Friday, Hun Sen said he would force his ministers to answer questions from the National Assembly once a week, and threatened to bring corrupt officials to court.
The first of those could be authorities involved with the World Food Program scandal, in which officials stole or sold for profit more than $1 million worth of rice donations, suggested Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections.
The problem remains, however, that once suspects of graft are brought to court, they face a notoriously corrupt judiciary. “That’s a big problem,” Koul Panha said.
(Additional reporting by Nhem Chea Bunly)
