The Relationship between Low Pay and Intention of Corruption in the Cambodia Public Sector

Abstract

The linkage between low pay and intention of corruption is one of the main key issues in the recent path of Cambodia socio-economic development. The issue has been widely raised among public officials, that their survival is depending their monthly salary, and to curb their household expenses would be impossible. Meanwhile, generating other sources of income would be preferable among public employees. From all these constraints, the gratitude and the great tolerant to corruption has enlarged its possibility to push forward the temptation of committed corrupt activities by the public employees.

In spite of numerous efforts, the government has been striving for decades to level up the remuneration for all government employees to encounter chronic corruption, but it was not the cure of this serious disease. The non-asymmetric between the increases of public officials salary compare to inflation rate, dramatic increased commodities prices and other necessity consumptions still make Cambodia public officials poorly paid and resulted wide-spread of corruption. By having said so, the more valid and accurate evidence was the corruption perception index in 2013, Cambodia ranked 160 out of 177 countries worldwide. Therefore, this study wanted to reveal the existing relationship between low pay and corruption in the Cambodia public sector. The study is also trying to discover other various factors that may occur between this main relationships and drew out some recommendation for the near future policies.

The study implemented a triangulation study strategy and were mainly covered up by research questionnaire survey in some ministries and public institutions, for instance, Office of the Council Ministers (OCM), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFA.IC), Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS), Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MPWT), Ministry of Social Affairs, Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY), Ministry of Women Affairs (MoWA), Ministry of Interior (MoI), Ministry of National Defense (MoD), Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology (MoWRAM), Ministry of Commerce (MoC), Institution of Technology Cambodia (ITC), Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA), General Customs and Excise Department (GCED), Council of Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD). Besides, questionnaire survey, informal information such as short conversations, discussions, documents and reports will play part as a modifier to the statistical findings within this triangulation method.

The results from the analysis explain that there is relationship between low pay and intention of corruption in the Cambodia public sector. In other word, while pay increase result the decrease of intention of corruption. The evidences also make the analysis more precise, by bring the commonalities conversations, documents and reports by scholars within boundary of the thesis context. It is always clear that low pay in public sector provides a breeding ground for corrupt practices.