Friday, January 1, 2010

Anti-graft bill set for passage in April

Friday, 01 January 2010
By Sam Rith and Sebastian Strangio
The Phnom Penh Post

SRP, NGOs call for earlier disclosure.

THE government’s draft Anticorruption Law will not be debated by the National Assembly until at least April, senior officials have said, prompting concerns that the long-awaited law will not be made public until the middle of next year.
Cheam Yeap, a senior lawmaker for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, said the law is still in the hands of the Council of Ministers, which approved it for debate earlier this month, and that it will not be put forward in the Assembly at least until parliamentarians return from their three-month vacation, which begins this month.
As of Thursday, Cheam Yeap had still not seen the draft, which he said contains nine chapters and 57 articles, since it had not yet been released by the Council of Ministers.
“We are waiting to receive the Anticorruption Law, and we have been waiting since 1994,” he said. Previous statements by government officials have implied that the law will be made public when it is passed to the National Assembly in preparation for its debate and adoption.

No comments: