Ahead of the United Nations International Day for Universal Access to Information, civil society groups and youths urged the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Hun Manet to expedite the long-delayed draft Law on Access to Information, also known as the A21 draft law.
Then–Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is now Senate president, pledged that the draft law would be passed ”in the next two years” following the July national elections last year, or the latest by 2025.
Dozens of NGOs signed a joint statement calling for the adoption of the new law in line with international standards, and to ensure Cambodian citizens’ right to information.
They also pointed out that other public services still “lagged” and affected people’s rights and benefits, such as major development projects including national public procurement procedures, economic land concessions, land issues and forced evictions.
Lam Socheat, director of Advocacy and Policy Institute (API), urged the government to expedite the draft law, as requested by civil society groups and citizens to revise some articles.
“The government has conducted consultations but please accept [our inputs] and [our] appeal to revise the draft law [on the access to information],” he said. “The draft law will apply to everyone, including civil servants and citizens,” Socheat added.
Upon approval of the law, private sectors would mainly benefit with regards to business investments, as well as journalists.
“We have analyzed some 600 laws, and found that a majority of those laws hide confidential information,” Socheat said.
He also mentioned that organizations retained their call to remove Article 20.7 from the A2I draft law, which states that public institutions may withhold “other confidential information as stipulated in the prohibition provisions”.
They also asked that Article 15.4 be taken out, as it talks about the deletion of an article and the requirement for 40 days to pass before a repeat request can be made to include newly released information.
Information Ministry spokesperson Tep Asnarith briefly said his ministry and relevant ministries are reviewing the draft law, but declined to comment on the call by the civil society groups to revise and delete some articles.
Nget Sal, 38, a farmer from Phnom Kravanh district in Pursat province who attended the National Workshop for Universal Access to Information in Phnom Penh, said the right to access information was “very crucial”.
This is particularly important for development project budgets in districts and communes, as well as high level institutions, the community representative highlighted.
When people can access information, it shows that there is transparency and social accountability. “And, we are able to trust the authorities for partaking in the development of communes and districts.
“[However] gathering information is still met with challenges relating to social land concessions as people do not know where to access information,” Sal said.
Local authorities have not disseminated adequate information on development projects, and economic and social land concessions, she alleged.
“There is no law [Access to Information Law], so it is difficult to participate in the [process of] development. People are also confused about the information received from other people,” Sal said.
Another participant, 30-year-old Thon Reaksmey from the banking sector, supported the implementation of the law which she said would allow people to access information to help with their livelihood, in relation to government policy development projects.
“It is very important. If there’s wrong information, people might misunderstand the information that has been provided,” she said.
Huot Vathana, deputy director-general of Public Procurement under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, said at the workshop that reformation of the public financial management has been ongoing since 2004, including the dissemination of information on procurements.
“The minister also decided to re-evaluate the public procurement system, although we have been reforming it for many years. Up to today, we still need to re-evaluate to see if our reforms are adequate,” he told participants.
The goal of opening access to public procurement is to promote new arrangements for the implementation of the Public Procurement Law, to further strengthen public procurement-related disclosures, and continue to disseminate information on public procurement processes through websites and training.
The government and relevant stakeholders have “done a lot” on the draft law, Vathana noted.
Currently, the General Department of Procurement has a website which publishes laws, statistics of public procurement and annual budget, however, Vathana acknowledged that the implementation of procurement in Cambodia was “still limited”. It was not as open as other countries, but the ministry was working on improving the issue, he shared.
