Government services

A military police officer was arrested Monday night at a border checkpoint in Kampot province as he attempted to cross into Vietnam with almost 700 kg of illegally logged wood, police said Wednesday. ...

Following the seizure of a massive trove of Asian artifacts smuggled into the U.S. by a New York-based art dealer, the Cambodian Embassy in Washington has started working with U.S. authorities to repatriate more than $3 million worth of Cambodian antiquities, an embassy official said ...

The governor of Preah Sihanouk province said Tuesday that he will delay the removal of 32 food vendors from O’Chheuteal Beach after reading—on Facebook—a letter purportedly issued to him by the National Assembly’s human rights commission asking him to hold off. ...

Some 100,000 prospective patients could lose opportunity for eye care due to Australia scaling back its foreign aid budget. But as Fred Hollows and other Australian NGOs brace themselves for the cuts, the Australian government is forging ahead with a $40 million scheme to relocate ...

Nearly three weeks after releasing an official price list for basic public services such as the production of passports and ID cards aimed at combating corruption, Interior Ministry officials Monday admitted that the new prices were not yet being applied. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen reiterated government policy to increase wage to $160 a month for factory workers and at least $250 a month for civil servants by 2018. His comment was made during a meeting yesterday with around 3,000 factory workers at the Koh Pich ...

Government authorities in a southwest Cambodian province are planning a coordinated campaign to round up residents suffering from mental illness and take them to Buddhist temples where they will be cared for by monks, a provincial official said. ...

Cambodian Labor Minister Ith Samheng said on Sunday that the country’s garment and footwear industries, the kingdom’s largest foreign currency earner, are comprised of 1,087 factories with 700,000 direct jobs. ...

An education campaign launched by Cambodia’s National Immunization Program (NIP) in the aftermath of last year’s HIV outbreak in Battambang has been effective in dispelling the concerns of parents hesitant to get their children vaccinated, government health bodies and the World Health Organization have said. ...

According to a new survey, land disputes in Cambodia lead to employment insecurity, causing poverty, food insecurity, and increasing physical and psychological insecurity. The survey found that most expressed a desire for the government to eliminate land disputes and set a clear policy to address ...

For Cambodia to provide quality public services will require reform of its financial management system, an economist says. “Public financial management” is the balance of government revenue and expenditures, and it requires strong institutions to build public services like education, health and infrastructure, Heng Dyna, an ...

Cambodia Post reported a 14 percent increase in 2014 revenues, as increasing consumer confidence boosted use of the once-fledgling service, a local media reported Wednesday. Cambodia Post currently dispatches mail to 192 countries. ...

Cambodian migrant workers working legally or illegally in neighboring Thailand and other countries in the region have remitted more than $1 billion dollars annually, which contributes significantly to the economy, an opposition lawmaker says. But their emigration has affected local farming as well, emptying rural villages, ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Wednesday announced the creation of a recurring annual $5-million fund to help Phnom Penh and every provincial capital clean up their trash-strewn streets, especially outside homes and restaurants. ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday ordered police across the country to focus on investigating and arresting the leaders of illegal-drug syndicates rather than low-level traffickers and users. ...

Approximately 200 lawmakers, educators and civil society and development partner representatives met here on Tuesday to discuss reform measures to improve educational system in Cambodia. Hang Chuon Naron said Cambodia now has more than 7,000 primary schools with about 2 million students, 5,750 secondary schools ...

Cambodia is not meeting many of its UN Millennium Development Goals, which are coming due this year, but it has made progress in the reduction of infant mortality. Currently, 28 of 1,000 children born in Cambodia die before reaching the age of one. That number is ...

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport called on the directors of public works in Phnom Penh and the provinces to crack down on fraudulent truck-weighing checkpoints around the country. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday called on his ruling party to give its staffers a base salary on par with the country’s lowest paid teachers plus 30 percent, roughly matching the raises teachers, nurses, police and soldiers will be seeing this year. ...

National military police commander Sao Sokha has set up an ad hoc commission to investigate a group of officers who allegedly shot at a truck that drove through a pair of checkpoints in Thbong Khmum province on Thursday night, then beat up the driver and ...

Authorities in Prey Veng province are searching for a group of rogue military police officers who shot at, tied up and beat two local truckers who drove through a pair of checkpoints without stopping while transporting a load of rice along National Road 11 on ...

A British national and a Finnish national were checked into Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh on Friday after being attacked with knives and batons on Koh Rong island off the coast of Siha­nouk­ville late Thursday night, according to police. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a new directive last week putting the Ministry of Mines and Energy in charge of all aspects of approving sand dredging operations in a move that one official said would help clear out a backlog of license requests. ...

Sihanoukville police on Sunday arrested one of the men behind last week’s violent attack on two foreign nationals on Koh Rong island, identifying the suspect as a staff member at the guesthouse where the assault took place, according to officials. ...