ACU Charges Hotel Tax Collector in Siem Reap Province

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Wednesday arrested a senior official from the Siem Reap provincial taxation branch and sent him to Phnom Penh to be placed in pretrial detention, officials said Thursday. Siem Reap Provincial Court president Duch Sok Sarin said that Liv Bunthan, the chief of the province’s medium-scale taxation management unit, had been arrested and charged with corruption offenses under Articles 592 and 593 of the penal code. The offenses are punishable by two to five years in jail and a fine of 4 million to 10 million riel, or about $1,000 to $2,500. … In November, two officials from the branch of the state electricity body in Mondolkiri province and a tax official in Preah Sihanouk province were charged with corruption and placed in pretrial detention. The ACU has been tight-lipped about both cases, and has also not yet investigated damning findings of corruption in the health sector uncovered by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria last month. Pen Bonnar, senior investigator for rights group Adhoc, noted that the ACU has focused largely on lower-level officials since it was created in 2010. …

Kuch Naren
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