More Rights for Commune Chief

Tin Sokhavuth

A typical commune hall in Banan district, Battambang province. (Photo: supplied)

The Ministry of Land Management Urban Planning and Construction (MLMUPC), on Tuesday, has been publishing a directive on its website in a view to reform the decision-making power at commune level in term of issuing paperwork concerning real estate.

According to the directive, the commune chief has the power to issue paperwork such as certificate of selling real estate, certificate of real estate donation, contract of pawned real estate, long term real estate lending contract etc.

The directive also said that commune chief has to take full responsibility regarding the identity of the real estate that was the objective of all paperwork, and the identity of the contractors.

A house owner living in the capital Phnom Penh’s Mean Chey district, who asked not to be named, told Khmer Times that to have a certificate of selling land at the commune hall in his district, he had to do a lot of paperwork with a lot of signatures from many officials in his district. He also had to pay “under table” some amount of money to speed up the paperwork process.

“Commune’s officials did not asked me to pay the under table money, but if we don’t do so, we have to wait for longtime before the paperwork is done. So we will lose a lot of time,” said the man.

However, he was optimistic to hear about the new directive issued by the MLMUPC. And he hope there will be a change for good in the process of doing paperwork at commune hall nationwide.

According to a sub-decree on the decentralization of powers-roles-duties of the commune council, issued by the government, the commune chief is the head of the commune council that is elected for every five years by the residents living in the commune.

Beside the right to issue paperwork concerning real estate matter, the commune council has many other functions such as maintain public security and order, promote the comfort and contentment of residents, promote social and economic development and upgrade the living standards of residents etc.

“The main function and role of the commune/Sangkat is to promote and facilitate the development of the commune/Sangkat by selecting appropriate and effective methods to carry out and deliver services,” stated the sub-decree.

In its Country Partnership Strategy 2014-2018, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) stated that the “low productivity of civil servants” in Cambodia is due to low salaries and inefficient human resource. It could also be understood that the low salaries are the main cause of corrupt practice in many governmental institutions where civil servants often talk about “butter office” – the office in which they could make a lot of money by using corrupt practice.

Nevertheless, the ADB added that although the public service delivery reform in Cambodia has been slow, but steady, some “progress has been achieved in decentralization and de-concentration reform.”