Source: Global Witness
International donors must act on entrenched natural resource-related corruption in Cambodia, says Global Witness
Cambodia’s international donors must tackle head on the gross mismanagement of the country’s natural resources at tomorrow’s government-donor meeting, campaign group Global Witness said today. Donors gave Cambodia $1bn in aid last year, despite evidence of widespread corruption and mismanagement of public funds and repeated failures to implement promised reform.
Ambassadors from donor countries will meet in Phnom Penh from June 2-3 for the regular review of the government’s progress towards meeting reform targets. They are expected to agree to continue to provide aid to the tune of $1bn a year - a figure almost equal to Cambodia’s entire domestic revenue through the national treasury in 2008 - even though the government has failed to meet agreed benchmarks.
“The Cambodian government has been promising to reform for years, but nothing had changed,” said Global Witness Campaigns Director Gavin Hayman. “Our latest report shows that the political elite has no intention of loosening its stranglehold over the country’s natural resource wealth. Donors simply cannot continue to turn a blind eye.”
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