Loan cancellation pledge will result in jail, says PM

Manekseka Sangkum: 

More concerning is the question as to how so many ordinary people find themselves in debt in the first place! 

Debt is a known vicious cycle: it drives people into trying out equally risky measures, from alcohol and drug addiction, joining precarious migrant workforce overseas, violent crimes, prostitution, selling off family assets and farmlands, borrowing from someone else to pay off the debt to one person and thereby becoming indebted to another, to a life on the streets and destitution where they end up being arrested by authorities and locked up at some other detention centres [where risks of drug abuse and violence are high] set up to give cities like Phnom Penh a healthier, beggars-free image! Suicides are common occurrences in rural areas. Meanwhile the PM decides to act tough on those with promises to 'cancel' the debt as his government's first step? What about the single biggest factor behind the violation of financial regulations: corrupt government officials, particularly in powerful places like the PM himself? 

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Prime Minister Hun Sen gives a speech yesterday at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh in which he warns opposition parties about the dangers of making false promises. Facebook

Loan cancellation pledge will result in jail, says PM

Tue, 15 March 2016 ppp

Vong Sokheng

“It is unacceptable that they cheat people for their own political gain, that drags people into worse debt,” 

Hun Sen

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday threatened political rivals with criminal charges should anyone campaign on the promise of cancelling household loans.

Speaking at a microfinance conference in Phnom Penh yesterday, Hun Sen spoke out against unnamed parliamentarians and individual party officials he said were spreading propaganda with promises of cancelling loans people have taken from the microfinance or banking industry.

“To do such a cheap act, going door to door and cheating people, by saying they will cancel debt if they will win in the election; I think that this act . . . [requires] immediate arrest, because it is in violation of financial regulations,” he said.

The premier said that the police would arrest anyone caught spreading such propaganda “on the spot”.

“It is unacceptable that they cheat people for their own political gain, that drags people into worse debt,” he said.

The prime minister said someone had been making such claims in recent weeks but did not reveal who it was.

Kuol Panha, head of election watchdog Comfrel, said that the premier had raised an “extreme” example, but that debating household debt among politicians should be encouraged to ensure “best practices” emerge from the finance industry.

“Politicians have the right to talk about that,” he said, citing previous government intervention into the microfinance industry following drought season to alleviate the burden among Cambodia’s poor as well as requests from the government to donor countries to restructure its own loans.