The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) presented some of its achievements at the ninth meeting of the National Anti-Corruption Council, announcing its success in having assets and liabilities declared by public servants for its biannual 2022 inspections.

Council head Top Sam chaired the meeting on February 28, with 10 out of 11 members present.

According to the ACU, the council praised the public servants who completed their declarations.

“The council also lauded the ACU’s professionalism and commended it for adhering to its responsibilities,” it said.

ACU head Om Yentieng said the ACU requested a total of 15,050 declarations this year, once duplicate names, and those who had previously retired or passed away were deleted from their files. It recieved 15,048, or 99.99 pre cent of the requested declarations.

Yentieng said the ACU also received declarations from 274 people for other reasons, including 155 newly appointmented civil servants, 42 who had resigned, 11 who were made redundant and 66 who retired.

“The ACU opened the envelopes and inspected the assets and liabilities of 16 individuals following requests linked to investigations in seven cases. We received a total of 46 complaints, half of them anonymous. Our legal team met to review and take any action that may have been neccesary the immediate day after receipt of a complaint,” he said.

In addition to these achievements, Yentieng also presented various work activities such as complaint resolution, corruption prevention work and the training sessions run by his unit.

“The public recognise that the ACU is a clean unit. It is true that some people would like to see the ACU prosecute more people, but they are overlooking the other two pillars of the work we do. Education and prevention are two equally important determinants to changing attitudes and behaviour related to corruption in society,” he said.

San Chey, executive director of the NGO Affiliated Network for Social Accountability, said there were many methods to assess the effectiveness of the ACU’s activities.

Chey was of the view that the means of controlling corruption in the country were still limited because the momentum of corruption in Cambodia, which he said were expressed by various organizations, remained high.

“If the momentum of corruption is still high, then it can be concluded that there are still shortcomings in anti-corruption measures, and it is likely that the unit’s strategic plans are still limited compared to the depth of corruption,” he said.