Ministries and other national bodies

The Anti-Corruption Unit has not yet opened an investigation into Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana’s secretive offshore holdings, but the unit’s chairman said on Thursday that a future probe could not be ruled out. ...

Sun Chanthol, the newly-appointed Minister of Public Works and Transport, revealed his plan to improve the ministry’s efficiency and transparency by overhauling its internal operations within his first 100 days in office during a speech yesterday. ...

Five people died and more than 200 houses in eight provinces were damaged by natural disasters in the first quarter of this year, a senior official of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said yesterday. ...

The nearly 1 million hectares of newly protected forests the Environment Ministry wants to create by the end of the year will add nearly a third more land to the portfolio of an agency already struggling to manage the 3.2 million hectares it has. And ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen made an appeal to public safety yesterday, announcing $6 million in bonuses for soldiers and law enforcement in anticipation of the Khmer New Year. ...

The two ministers who were publicly scolded for their “very slow” work by Prime Minister Hun Sen in February both gave up control to their successors at a pair of handover ceremonies in Phnom Penh on Wednesday as part of a cabinet reshuffle approved by ...

The Ministry of Health has ordered provincial health department directors to organize officials and doctors to work during the four days of Khmer New Year so hospitals and health centers are able to respond to traffic accidents and other issues. ...

A new plan to protect the environment started taking shape yesterday when the Environment Ministry held a workshop to discuss ideas on how to convert numerous laws into a single code to govern the county’s natural resources. It is expected the process will take two years ...

Oil and gas exploration companies operating in Cambodia must follow the schedule of their concession contracts or face fines and risk having their contracts revoked, a state official warned yesterday. ...

Eight tigers will be released into the Cambodian wild in an unprecedented plan projected to cost between $20 and $50 million, the Ministry of Agriculture and WWF-Cambodia announced at an event in Phnom Penh on Wednesday.   ...

More than 20 Cambodian migrants who had been working at two pig farms in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province have been given work permits and allowed to remain in the country after they were found to have been working without proper documents. The move followed intervention from ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday threatened to remove Sam Piseth, Phnom Penh’s Public Works and Transport Department Director, saying he was not satisfied with inefficient road maintenance in the capital. ...

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has defended the controversial new Telecommunications Law following a biting legal analysis by rights group Licadho, which says the legislation is a veiled tool to silence critics and potentially criminalize private expression. ...

The new minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, Chea Sophara, should strive to resolve the country’s land disputes and expand land registration services, his outgoing predecessor Im Chhun Lim said during a handover ceremony yesterday. ...

Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana had a stake in a shadowy offshore company in the British Virgin Islands, according to data made public on Sunday in what is being called the largest leak of secret documents in history. ...

When the National Assembly meets today to approve the prime minister’s second cabinet reshuffle since the last election, it will be a case of back to the future for outgoing Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol.   ...

Forty new factories received permission to operate in Cambodia during the first three months of this year, while 54 factories have applied for licenses and 21 are currently undergoing renewal procedures, according to a report released yesterday by the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft. ...

The Ministry of Interior has ordered National Police to investigate a scam in which unidentified callers claimed to be senior officials at the ministry and the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) in an attempt to extort money from district governors, according to a letter issued on April ...

Police have started a countrywide manhunt after an anonymous caller attempted to extort money from district governors in Kampong Chhnang and Battambang while posing as Interior Ministry secretary of state Sak Sehta last month. On March 4 and then again on March 12, an anonymous caller ...

A massive algal bloom off the coast of Kep that has left scores of dead coastal crabs and fish in its wake resulted in warnings from the Ministry of Environment and Prime Minister Hun Sen this weekend to avoid eating seafood or swimming in the ...

Cambodia’s schoolchildren could soon attend class in unusually luxurious buildings if Prime Minister Hun Sen has his way. Yesterday the premier granted the government’s entire stockpile of illegally-felled timber – some of which is highly sought after rosewood – to the Ministry of Education to ...

The Commerce Ministry announced in a letter yesterday that it would push the deadline for companies to register themselves on its new online portal system back to June 30, after the majority of companies operating in the Kingdom failed to register by the original deadline ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has agreed to legally protect nearly 1 million hectares of the Kingdom’s forest land, including the Prey Lang forest. Speaking during the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport’s annual meeting at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Mr. Hun Sen said he ...

In a ceremony on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health appointed a new advisor – the Swiss Dr. Beat Richner, founder of the Kantha Bopha Hospital and Foundation. His hospitals have treated more than 15 million children since the first one opened in 1991 and Minister ...