This moment should be used as an opportunity to re-evaluate Cambodia’s policies around taxation — most specifically the income tax, and the rate at which the wealthiest Cambodians contribute to national coffers, writes Future Forum researcher Nith Kosal.
A district police chief in Kampong Speu has been suspended after complaints from subordinates that he played games rather than assign work, and invited them three times to drink in Preah Sihanouk province without considering the potential for Covid-19 infection.
Poipet city’s casino industry has been shuttered since late April as they became Covid-19 hotspots, and it’s been more than three months of scraping by for many of the thousands of casino workers who found themselves out of work.
Border province officials say they have prepared new quarantine facilities as Cambodia is on the cusp of reopening its border to jobless, Covid-wary migrant workers in Thailand.
Hammered by years of debt, drought and desperation, Cambodia’s smallholder farmers have long supported themselves by sending family to work in Phnom Penh factories. But the pandemic has upended the arrangement, forcing unemployed workers back to failing farms.
A three-fold rise in human trafficking cases handled by the Interior Ministry could be one of the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic’s pressure on jobs and livelihoods, government and civil society officials said.
Restrictions in border provinces and elsewhere will remain in place for at least another week to try to curb the spread of Covid-19’s Delta variant, while Phnom Penh restrictions including its curfew have also been extended.
According to a document circulated on Friday, the Health Ministry issued a directive that public and private health centers must accept all arriving patients after reports that numerous sick people were turned away.
Authorities across the country levied $11,000 in fines and apprehended 428 people in one day for violations of Covid-19 restrictions, while Phnom Penh arrested 51 violators during a week of curfews.
Police are searching for a man alleged to have hit a health officer on the forehead during Covid-19 vaccinations due to a delay in the data entry system.
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