Senior CPP lawmaker says draft is ‘nearly complete', a claim met with scepticism from NGOs and opposition leaders.

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HENG CHIVOAN

CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap at a press conference in this file photo.

A SENIOR Cambodian People's Party lawmaker said Monday that the long-awaited Anti-corruption Law and Criminal Code would not be submitted to the National Assembly before the end of the year.

Cheam Yeap told the Post he had recently been in touch with Som Kimsour, the government official in charge of preparing legislation for the National Assembly, who told him that drafts of both laws were "nearly complete".

"I hope that the Council of Ministers will be able to submit them to the National Assembly by the end of the year," he said. "It is not only NGOs and the international community who are waiting for the laws. Lawmakers want to adopt the laws, too."

Civil society and opposition leaders have been advocating on behalf of both laws for years, most recently at an event last week marking the one-year anniversary of a campaign that collected more than 1 million thumbprints and signatures demanding their passage.

Yim Sovann, lawmaker and spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said the party had been pushing for passage of the Anti-corruption Law since 1994 and continued to "pray that the government will speed up the process".

Yang Kim Eng, president of the People's Centre for Development and Peace, a member of the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations Against Corruption,  said Monday that he had no confidence that the draft laws would be submitted to the National Assembly by the end of the year.

He said the government has made similar promises in the past and has failed to live up to them.

"However, we still hope to see the laws passed," he said.