Tuesday, 24 February 2009

Transparency: Corruption laws 'weak', says report

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Sebastian Stragio
Monday, 23 February 2009

TRANSPARENCY

US-based corruption monitor Global Integrity has released an annual report rating as"very weak" the government's good governance and anti-corruption safeguards. "Cambodia suffers from a range of governance and anti-corruption challenges, including vote-buying and political financing scandals to privatisations that have tended to favour a small group of wealthy elites," said the report, released Wednesday.

Although the country scored relatively well in voter participation and the integrity of its elections, the new report, which aggregated dozens of indicators provided by local experts, found Cambodia especially lacking in government accountability. It also listed the Kingdom alongside Angola, Belarus and Iraq on its 2008 Grand Corruption Watch List, noting that "effective one-party rule stands in the way of moving forward" and that "governance and anti-corruption reforms ... will be extremely challenging until fundamental changes take place". The report found that though there were anti-corruption laws in place, there was a large gap between the legal framework and its effective implementation.

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