Chhay presses graft case

Opposition lawmaker Son Chhay will send letters to National Assembly President Heng Samrin and First Deputy President Kem Sokha this week urging the leaders to take legal action against the parliament’s secretary-general, Leng Peng Long.

Chhay yesterday accused Peng Long of withholding records of the number of civil servants involved in corruption since he requested the files be released last week in a bid to clean up parliament.

“This is a legal issue as we wrote to Leng Peng Long, secretary-general of the parliament, and he has yet to reply,” he said.

The longtime anti-corruption campaigner and opposition member said his efforts to combat corruption in parliament weren’t an attack on the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

“For this issue, the permanent committee of parliament must take measures,” he said. “That is why I have asked for the lists [of civil servants], so why have they not given me the lists?”

In a letter to Peng Long on October 21, Chhay claimed that the deputy secretary-general of the National Assembly, Mith Karen, used his position to appoint seven of his relatives to jobs in parliament.

“Excellency [samrin] should consider suspending Mith Karen’s family urgently until an investigation can be carried out and the truth uncovered,” he wrote in the letter.

Karen could not be reached, and Peng Long declined to comment yesterday, saying only that he did “administrative work” in accordance with the wishes of his superiors.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/chhay-presses-graft-case