Corruption in Cambodia’s private sector

Conference on ” Assessment of Corruption in Cambodia’s private sector” was organised by Economic Institute of Cambodia (EIC) on Tuesday 18. The EIC launched a report based on survey of 1200 businesses. It states that private sector lost annually 2,8 percent of unofficial payment being made to government officials. And micro-finance payed estimated 1,8%, small and medium enterprises (2,5%) and large business (4,1%) every year.

The report said that the government was only able to collect 25% of potential tax revenue last year because of unofficial payment made to government officials. And then ministry of finance had reaction to the report. He blasted the report by EIC, which exagerated the amount of money lost to the government in uncollected tax revenue. Estimated $400 millions have been lost in unofficial tax in 2005.

Cheam Yeap said that corruption is a big obstacle in country development. He added that ” Corruption is the misuse of function, duty, power and influence to take advantage for themselves such as money, in kind and so on. So people lost confidence over all level of leadership.

National Audit Authority (NAA) indicated that it has also discovered a lot of tax revenue. By the way, many ministries have refused to offer the important documentation to NAA to make investigation into irregularities.