Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday recognized the dual role of digitalized public services in preventing corruption in government ministries and state-owned agencies, and attracting foreign investment to the Kingdom. Speaking at the first-ever forum on the protection and conservation of natural resources, Mr. Hun Sen said the digitalization of public services enabled the government to improve its tax collection as “taxpayers did not have to meet tax collectors face to face”, and this avoided bribes being paid.
 

“We have been using digitalized payment systems to fight corruption. Citizens can make their tax payments through banks or use a mobile money transfer company, like Wing, to send the money to the General Department of Taxation. They no longer have to meet physically with unscrupulous tax collectors who demand bribes,” Mr. Hun Sen told the forum’s audience that included foreign donors and ambassadors. Mr. Hun Sen said the government’s system of paying monthly salaries had also been digitalized and this “got rid of ghost employees” on the payrolls of certain government departments and the armed forces.
 

“The ghost cannot hold a bank account, let alone withdraw money from the bank. We have destroyed those ghosts by digitalizing salary payments. All actual government employees now must have a bank account to withdraw their salaries,” he said. According to data from the General Department of the National Treasury released at the end of last year, 99.45 percent of government employees, or 400,000 people, now have their salaries paid into their bank accounts. More than 76 percent of the armed forces have their salaries directly deposited in a bank account.

 

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E-Services Stop Corruption but not at the border...