… I have the pleasure of returning to the province of Pursat today, especially to the district of Kandeang and it is the seventh trip I made so far to this place as mentioned by HE Ung Samy, the Pursat Governor. I will make my eighth trip soon after this trip because I have to inaugurate the national road 56 between the district of Kravanh and the Cambodian-Thai border. And in fact the number of my trip needs not to be counted so and so as I will be present if the people need me because my wish to see a change in our people’s living condition. I wish to thank our people and monks for the supports they gave me in the second term Royal Government of Cambodia, which will come to its end through the establishment of a new Government after the general election to be organized on July 27.
… The current Royal Government’s policy has indeed responded to the people’s demand and progress has been made remarkably. Even this area was affected by flood, especially the district of Kandeang, we have made joint efforts to overcome difficulties. I have mapped out a policy with regard to the fishing lots and have resolutely directed the fishing lot reforms in 2000. We have reduced the size of the state owned fishing lots by 56%, which have been registered as public fishing area. I have also introduced a policy to conduct no charges on those fishing areas in the second term of the Royal Government in line with its policy of collecting no tax on farmlands. The Royal Government also makes intervention and gathers generous persons to pool resources to help build needed achievements aimed at reducing our people’s poverty.
… I understand well what could be the need of our people because I was born to be poor and lived a pagoda-boy life with so many difficulties. I know the needs of rural areas and people and I have make many priorities for rural areas, but three of them have to be addressed in this term — water, roads and schools. If we fail to resolve the three priorities, we could not talk about development. Our people in rural area could not afford to live in absence of school building, better roads and water access at all. They also could not afford to have one but not the others as well. I wish to thank HE Suy Sem for his efforts as a CPP work team member in this area with HE Sar Kheng to look after the construction of two schools that I provided to people in this area in 1996 and two more in 2002. Thanks also go to Mr. Nakajima Osamus for his assistance in providing solar energized lighting system.
… Some people asked why Hun Sen has got resources to go on. My strong point is that I get what is offered for the sake of development and when donors see that their assistance is being used in right direction, addressing the need of people, they do not hesitate to provide more. Taking into account the geographical condition of the district, the construction of the Kandeang College in this area is an appropriate decision. I have a remark to make. In 2002, our people collected their production only from 12033 hectares over 14328 hectares. Our people produced only two tons per hectares and only three communes could produce dry season rice. I would like to emphasize on the report about housing condition — which we have 4503 houses in brick and corrugated roofing and 5055 in thatch. We should try and keep the figure for comparison again next year to see if the number of concrete and brick houses increases. This will be one measurement to tell us how much poverty has been removed as we now have poverty rate of 36% to be reduced in the years to come.
… The rate of poverty in 1979 was 100% because our people have got nothing after the Pol Pot’s regime. As of now we have reduced the poverty figure by 64% and we have 36% to go. This place has not got any schools for our children to go under Pol Pot and today we have 34 of them with 253 classrooms. We have two colleges of 25 classrooms. I think based upon this development figure, we could go on making more progress for our people in rural areas.
Samdech Hun Sen on that occasion offered 22 million Riels for the pagoda, one school building of six classrooms, one office building of four classrooms, six solar energized lighting system for running 15 vacuum lights, two PCs, one printer, one photocopier, two 14 inch color TVs, two VCRs and a 7 KVA generator to the Hun Sen-Kandeang college, two school buildings of 12 classrooms to the Primary School of Kandeang, 8 million Riel to the kindergarten seconded to the college of Hun Sen-Kandeang, one school building of six classrooms to the Primary School of Tunle Om and various other materials for thePursat School of Pedagogy, the commune of Chhoeu Thom, and the Pursat Office of Culture and Fine Arts.
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