Kampong Chhnang provincial governor Sun Sovannarith has vowed to provide local people with solutions to problems through community visits by relevant authorities from this month onwards. Residents will no longer have to spend time and money travelling to district or provincial authorities for answers, he said.
Sovannarith said on October 27 that in order to address the concerns of people in the community, authorities would go to every commune to resolve issues. Serious problems that the provincial, district or commune authorities cannot address would be referred to the national level.
The governor said he will assign a working group comprising of deputy governors, provincial councils and other departments and units to deal directly with people in all localities.
“We will address all problems related to land and some issues such as requests for building canals. People’s concerns in the different localities are not the same. We will deal with each commune according to the actual situation,” he said.
He said he had already ordered commune authorities to summarise all issues and send the list to the provincial level for review. From November 1 onwards, he would proceed in solving the problems.
“I will hold a meeting to review the lists and summarise the total cases and determine how many are in the court’s hands. If a case is related to land allocation or land [disputes] in general, it needs to be dealt with by law,” he said.
He said solving problems this way will become a tradition. He pledged to solve most of the problems this month, and if any issues remain unresolved, the work will continue to the next month.
Cambodian Institute for Democracy president Pa Chanroeun said it was good for the provincial authorities to find ways to address the locals’ concerns.
Chanroeun said finding solutions for the people are what authorities at all levels have to do to serve them as they are civil servants.
“The word ‘civil servant’ or those who work in public institutions are servants of the people, and they have to help solve people’s problems. Through those services, the people reciprocate by paying taxes as well as contributing to provide support to those who serve them,” he said.
