Donors to give near $3 billion in 2010-12

The Phnoom Penh Post
Tuesday, 08 June 2010 15:03 Sebastian Strangio

INTERNATIONAL development assistance to Cambodia is expected to top US$2.8 billion for the three years ending 2012, according to indicative financing estimates released during government-donor meetings in the capital last week.

According to a copy of the estimates obtained by the Post, the figure includes the $1.1 billion in pledges announced at the close of the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF) on Thursday, in addition to indicative financing totalling $958 million for 2011 and $750.5 million for 2012.

But observers say the figures do not necessarily point to a decline in aid payments, and that the indications could rise if new donor-funded projects come online over the next two years.

“The indicative financing for 2011 and 2012 could increase a little because donors require some time to confirm their commitments with their respective governments,” said Sin Somuny, executive director of Medicam, an umbrella organisation for health-sector NGOs.

Hady Riad, a councillor at the German embassy, said Germany’s indicative aid figures, which show a decrease from $65.6 million this year to $50.5 million in 2011 and $27 million in 2012, consisted of disbursals for pre-existing aid projects and would be subject to change. “These figures are not to be equated with any new commitments,” he said.

German development assistance spiked in 2010 because of some projects that have had a “long period of implementation”, he said. He added that Berlin would undertake its biannual assessment of projects in Cambodia next year, and that the approval of new projects could potentially boost indications.

Masafumi Kuroki, Japan’s ambassador to Cambodia, said the 2011-12 figures indicated “an overall trend” of donor support for the government, but that his country’s aid figures would also likely be revised. Japan has indicated it will maintain its level of development assistance at $131.8 million each year from 2010-12.

“Our intention is to maintain almost the same level of assistance for the coming years, but it may increase or decrease,” Kuroki said.

The list of aid figures also gives a breakdown of the record $1.1 billion pledged by donors last week. Japan continues to be the country’s largest bilateral donor, pledging $131.8 million for 2010, followed by China ($100.2 million), the US ($68.5 million) and Australia ($61 million).

UN agencies will shell out $86.8 million for 2010, while the World Bank will contribute $122.7 million, the Asian Development Bank $153.8 million and the Global Fund $75.8 million. The figures also show South Korea pledging $26.8 million in aid for this year, a figure that is indicated to rise to $69.4 million in 2012.

This year’s record $1.1 billion aid pledge was an unprecedented signal of strong donor support for Cambodia, but some civil society activists have argued that development partners have done little to pressure the government to meet good governance benchmarks in exchange for aid.

At the close of the CDCF meeting Thursday, Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon praised the support of the donor community, saying the funds would help support the government’s National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) update for 2009-13, which will require around $1 billion in external funding annually for its five-year duration.

Sin Somuny from Medicam said that the aid slated for the next three years would benefit the country, but that there needs to be improvements in aid effectiveness.

“The country needs this money for development,” he said. “The question is, how do we improve accountability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness?”

PM talks on govt salary reforms

Thursday, 03 June 2010 15:03
The Phnom Penh Post
Cheang Sokha and James O’toole

PRIME Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday defended the government’s controversial decision to end salary supplement programmes for civil servants, saying such programmes breed corruption and create inequity among government workers.

Speaking before the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum, a meeting with international donors and development organisations to assess the government’s progress on a number of reforms and finalise new aid pledges, Hun Sen called the cancelled programmes “dangerous” and said they risked “breaking our administration”.

“Regarding the issue of salary supplements and why the government decided to cancel the priority packages and the salary supplements, I have already ordered my colleagues to discuss this with the development partners,” Hun Sen said. “At this point, it will help prevent corruption.”

Under several kinds of salary supplement programmes, donors had been assisting the government in bolstering the often-paltry salaries of civil servants across a variety of sectors. Two such supplement programmes – Priority Mission Groups (PMGs) and Merit-Based Performance Incentives (MBPIs) – were implemented in recent years to allow donors to target specific projects and promote a culture of meritocracy among government workers.

In December, Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon said the government was cancelling all such programmes as part of a broader administrative reform effort effective January 1. NGOs and development organisations responded that they had been given little time to prepare for the reforms, and in January, Keat Chhon announced a six-month transition period in which straightforward salary supplements, though not PMGs or MBPIs, would be allowed to continue.

Officials from NGOs and development organisations have warned that, in response to the supplement cuts, low-level government employees such as doctors and nurses may leave their jobs or charge more for services to supplement their incomes.

In a letter dated May 25 and addressed to ministers and secretaries of state at “all ministries [and] institutions of the Royal Government”, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An said that a replacement compensation system called the “Priority Operating Costs scheme” (POC) is to be implemented in July. The letter says that POC will operate “within the framework of the cooperative financial contributions of the development partners”, though it does not specify what sort of oversight donors will have of their funding.

Operating expenses under the POC system, Sok An’s letter explains, are to be tabulated by totalling “daily expenses”, “expenses on communication” and “expenses on transportation”. Monthly expense limits for employees at different levels of government are presented in a table, with limits ranging from US$50-$70 for “operational” expenses at the provincial level and below to $350-400 for “programme management” expenses at the national level.

“This expense table shall be implemented as the common, standard expense table for all ministries and institutions running the Cooperative Financial Contributions programmes or projects of the development partners and shall be reviewed every 18 months at the latest,” the letter reads.
Hun Sen said in his remarks to donors on Wednesday that the Kingdom’s previous reliance on salary supplements had created an environment in which employees of the same government office were forced to compete with one another to work on donor projects and receive the attendant bonuses.

“Imagine if you had a military unit with 100 soldiers and only three of them received the salary supplements – the other 97 will say, ‘Let those soldiers fight!’” Hun Sen said. “They will withdraw, leaving the other three soldiers to be killed, so if we continue this system, Cambodia’s administration will be broken in the near future.”

Sin Somuny, executive director of the local health group Medicam, said he agreed with the prime minister’s concerns about preserving equity in civil servant compensation. He said, however, that further discussions are necessary to clarify how the POC scheme would work in practice.

“I don’t fully understand the details of both the rate and the arrangement of POC, and I think it needs to be fully understood,” he said, adding that he was unsure whether expense levels could be adjusted depending on the needs of a particular office.

In a presentation at a conference in April, National AIDS Authority vice chairman Tia Phalla said POC payments “are not compensation or salary supplements” and emphasised the need to maintain salaries for government workers at acceptable levels.

“There is a real risk that the huge [public health] gains made in Cambodia over the last 15 years might be reversed if staff remuneration is inadequate,” Tia Phalla said.

Donors and development organisations referred questions to the German Embassy, which they said had been the leading international organisation working on the Kingdom’s public administration reform. Embassy officials could not be reached for comment.

Love is really something you've to learn

I am born with struggle and persistence for whom/what i want but I've never prepared to lose love. I've tried tried but i still lose s.o. I feel mentally tired.

I've been successful with my wish. God grants everything i want but NOT everyone.

I dont know how she feels when she said like that to me. I just wanna talk with her normally even though we cannt no longer be close. I feel sad, lonely and hurt. It's the unhappiness in life that you cannt express. I dont want anyone to listen to my sorrow. Anyway, I can speak my feeling with writing so that I'll have better feeling :).