NCJ Number
228817
Journal
Crime Prevention and Community Safety Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Dated: October 2009 Pages: 277-296
Date Published
October 2009
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study examined the nature, magnitude, and seriousness of "unofficial fees" and other forms of corruption in Cambodia, which is still feeling the effects of Pol Pot's genocidal regime (1975-79), which destroyed the country's intellectual resources and its economy, along with its social identity.
Abstract
In 2006, Cambodia was ranked the 13th most corrupt nation among a field of 163 countries. It is estimated that $330 million in U.S. dollars is spent by Cambodia's private sector in the form of so-called "unofficial fees," which consist of bribes and kickbacks to various government officials. Other forms of corruption include kickbacks to employers and hiring agents; businesses buying or renting children from poor parents; land-grabbing; and various types of corruption in education, health care, and housing. Numerous factors are responsible for Cambodia's pervasive corruption. These include a cumbersome and highly politicized bureaucracy; a lack of transparency in the regulatory administration; weak internal and external accountability mechanisms; low civil service salaries (less than 20 percent of the living wage); failure to control nepotism and conflict of interest in both the public and private sectors; failure to produce and implement an effective anticorruption law that requires fiscal asset disclosure by public officials; and a low level of public access to official information or involvement in the political process. Other factors are a political culture that uses the rhetoric of anticorruption but fails to implement effective anticorruption measures and failure to enact a freedom-of-information law. This study examined the impact of corruption on Cambodia's economy and proposes policies and strategies for controlling crime and corruption in Cambodia. 38 references