Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said he would continue to receive input and provide information about the progress of decentralisation and deconcentration with the aim of promoting effective public services.

“I promise to continue to discuss the reform process, which is an administrative reform having a close relation with the daily life of people.

“I am happy to welcome your comments and will forward them to relevant authorities involved in this process for us to achieve our goal of these reforms,” he said.

Sar Kheng explained that decentralisation is the delegation of power, roles and resources from central to local administrations for them to manage the effectiveness and efficiency of public services and community development.

This system requires local authorities who are elected officials to be more accountable to the people.

Deconcentration, he said, is the process of transferring authorities and resources from the national level to the sub-national administrations in the form of power delegation.

In this regard, the administrations must be accountable for their work before the ministry or institution that delegates power to them.

He said decentralisation is the most popular form of public administration, but it is not the perfect one without disadvantages if this system is not based on the real situation in terms of politics, socio-economy, culture, and the history of each country.

The processes that Cambodia has embraced has produced many results concerning the establishment of the system and work procedure for the sub-national level based on democratic development principles.

“However, we still have some challenges that need to be solved according to the will of the government in this important reform,” he said.