"Cambodia ranks lowly on corruption index, little improvement reported", 29 January 2021

Cambodia continued to be the most corrupt country in the ASEAN region, with ingrained corruption in the public and private sectors, according to a Transparency International report.

Transparency International Cambodia released its Corruption Perception Index, which rates 180 countries using multiple existing surveys, combined with expert opinions from within each country. Cambodia ranked 160 out of 180 countries globally, the same rank it had last year.

Cambodia scored 21 out of 100, which was one point improvement over last year’s corruption ratings. Last year’s evaluation indicated that the country was “highly corrupt.”

“From a regional perspective, Cambodia continues to occupy the third lowest spot in the Asia Pacific, coming above only Afghanistan and North Korea, and the lowest spot in the ASEAN region,” read the report…

“A persistent low score on the CPI index indicates ingrained political and institutional shortcomings in a country. In the time of COVID-19, corruption poses a double-threat for many low-income economies,” said Pech Pisey, executive director at Transparency International Cambodia.

The report said Cambodia needed to do more with its existing Anti-Corruption Law, especially enforcing asset declarations, adopting the long-delayed, and controversial, Access to Information draft legislation, as well as strengthening institutions responsible for implementing the rule of law…

Phay Siphan, the government’s spokesperson, questioned the transparency group’s evaluation of Cambodia, questioning how investments continued to enter the country and add to state coffers if corruption was so endemic.

“If we are corrupt, then that money will not go into the state coffers,” said Siphan. “This report is just a ridiculous fabrication.”…