Civil Service Reform and Anti-corruption Measures

Government, donors and NGOs all acknowledge that low wages and low skill levels are contributing to the low morale and poor performance of the public sector.  The NGO community reiterates that inadequate government salaries remain one of the major obstacles to the delivery of quality public services that could dramatically reduce poverty.  NGOs working in Cambodia are particularly disillusioned by the lack of progress in this area, and especially the ones working in the health, education, legal and judicial sectors.   Particularly worrisome is the fact that the Health Sector Strategic Plan did not select the problem of low salaries as a health sector priority for 2003-2007.

The need for raising civil service salaries is included. However, strategies for raising salaries are less clear.  Monitoring of salary levels as a service-delivery capacity indicator is not included.

Inadequate and/or delayed government salaries also fuel corruption, and corruption has a greater impact on the poor.  Although the RGC has publicly stated that corruption in the public sector is a major constraint to sustainable development and has pledged to fight corruption, little progress has been achieved.  A recent survey shows that even though the amounts paid by the poor are smaller than what high-income households pay, the low-income households bear the larger burden of corruption as measured by the bribe/income ratio.  Additionally, the same survey shows that households perceive corruption to have become worse over the past three years.[1]  In Cambodia, corruption is widespread and affects the judiciary, customs, tax authorities, health, education, land, forestry, fisheries, road services and police.

Anti-corruption measures are included, though are likely to be inadequate. Substantive reference to enforcement is not included.

¨       Because civil service reform and anti-corruption measures are such key issues for good governance, NGOs reiterate the need to provide a decent living wage to civil servants by introducing a realistic government salary system linked with an impartial performance-based scale.  Additionally, NGOs encourage efforts to pass anti-corruption legislation while also using existing anti-corruption provisions to fight the persisting culture of impunity. 

Included.  RGC recognizes the need for a pay reform but plans for an impartial performance based scale not included in the text.