Provincial and local governments

Indigenous people in northeastern provinces yesterday raised concern over wildlife sanctuaries that could be affected by the government’s plan to set up new provinces carved out from Mondulkiri province’s Koh Nhek district and Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district. ...

The government is planning to create two new provinces carved out of the provinces of Kandal, Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri, according to a letter Interior Minister Sar Kheng sent to Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday. ...

Chumnoab commune authorities in Koh Kong province have started to dismantle the Areng Valley community office despite appeals from the community to keep it. On March 21, Chumnoab commune officials advised the Areng Valley community to relocate their office because the land it was on ...

The National Election Committee announced on Friday that Phnom Penh and all provincial election committees would recruit 702 short-term contract officials to work for the upcoming national election in July. ...

An Areng Valley representative on Monday visited the Chumnoab commune office in Koh Kong province to plead with authorities not to remove a community office that has been slated for demolition to make way for a new commune office. ...

The Chumnoab commune authority in Koh Kong province’s Thmar Baing district yesterday ordered Areng Valley residents to move their community office to a new location to make way for its new office. According to a letter released yesterday by Chumnoab commune, commune officials asked Areng residents ...

In the past two decades, the government has transferred about $2 billion to lower level administrations in an effort to decentralize.The figure was revealed yesterday during the first day of a two-day conference on decentralization on Koh Pich. ...

Ruling Cambodian People’s Party working groups are being handed a list of 10 diktats from Prime Minister Hun Sen, bringing the party’s recent vows to increase surveillance and restrict dissent to the local level. ...

Kampot is due to have a new governor after just over a year and a half under current Governor Chan Chesda, according to a royal decree signed on Tuesday. The decree appoints Cheav Tay as the new governor, and indicates Chesda is to transfer to ...

To promote the registration of small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft will begin early next year to decentralise the process by granting provincial government officials the authority to register businesses. ...

In a frank rebuke of members of his own party, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng yesterday accused national leaders and ministers of impeding the process of decentralising Cambodia’s government out of a desire to maintain power for themselves. ...

The CPP claims to have received 390 defections as of Monday. They include one lawmaker, 33 provincial and district councillors, and 356 commune officials, of whom 33 are commune chiefs. The chiefs account for around 7 percent of the 489 CNRP chiefs elected in June, ...

Irregularities have been found in the Mondulkiri provincial administration over clearing state land to make way for timber smuggling to Vietnam. An investigation has been launched to find the officers responsible. ...

Kry Lay lined up in early June to vote for the party he wanted to run Kampong Cham province’s Srak commune in the eastern part of the country. A former Sam Rainsy Party commune, the locale’s electorate delivered what Lay, a local farmer, wanted – ...

Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district governor Pil Kosal has been transferred to work at the Interior Ministry after the ruling CPP lost all of its commune seats in the district to the opposition CNRP in June’s polls. ...

A Ministry of Interior directive requiring provincial approval for work done on commune halls prompted a thinly veiled threat from a ministry spokesman yesterday that a popular opposition commune chief could be arrested if she didn’t comply. ...

Two Mother Nature activists arrested after filming suspected sand-bearing vessels have been charged with incitement and making unauthorised recordings of a person in “a private place” – an offence that drew skepticism yesterday, given they were in their own boat in the open ocean when ...

Opposition members in Kampong Chhnang say they have been banned from meeting since the arrest of CNRP leader Kem Sokha on Sunday, with the provincial police chief yesterday saying he would “not allow” the party to “discuss politics”. ...

Sihanoukville officials are scrambling to figure out how they will collect rubbish throughout the city – one of the top tourism destinations in the country – if waste management firm Cintri makes good on a recent threat to halt services on September 14, raising concerns ...

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected a bail application for Poipet Commune Chief Chao Veasna, who has been in pretrial detention since February for his alleged role in a protest that turned violent outside the border town’s customs office in 2015. ...

The CNRP was forced to hold a downsized version of a seminar for incoming elected officials led by party president Kem Sokha at its headquarters in Kompong Chhnang province on Monday after provincial authorities refused to allow a larger gathering. ...

Kampong Cham provincial authorities have ordered a newly-elected commune chief to repair a road he had begun excavating to irrigate water away from villagers’ rice fields in Cheung Prey commune. ...

Prominent opposition Commune Chief Sin Rozeth has been formally chastised by Battambang officials for seemingly minor violations – such as erroneously declaring certain services free and keeping her own records – in a case one analyst said reflected the harassment opposition officials have faced since ...

A newly elected opposition commune chief who allowed constituents to put a donation box in his office to fund commune services has found himself under fire by ruling party peers and higher-ups. ...