… I have a great pleasure today in joining with all of our people and monks to inaugurate achievements in the Hun Sen-Skun College of Choeung Prey district, Kompong Cham province. Frankly speaking, these school buildings were built since 1995 but I have not got time for the inauguration ceremony. In fact I have built in all 352 school buildings of 1800 classrooms in Kompong Cham province alone. So far I have inaugurated only less than fifty of them and the rest have been put into operation without inaugurating them at all. So today, 2003 already, I have come to inaugurate the Hun Sen-Skun College. In addition to that I have yet to provide fifty sewing machines to the college as promised and it is a standard to be applied in all Hun Sen-built secondary schools.
… Even if my presence is rare here, as it was mentioned by HE Governor Cheang Am, there are various CPP working teams operating in this area. HE Heng Samrin himself is leading the team in Kompong Cham province. Areas along the national road 6, HE Hor Nam Hong, Minister for Foreign Affairs is in charge, HE Chhuor Leang Huot is in charge of CPP works in Prey Chhor district and various other leaders in other districts. It is because we have work teams everywhere we could gather information on various places and we could respond to the situation according to their conditions – the most serious situations will get immediate responses and the less serious ones will be entertained later. However I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and appreciations for the CPP central committee’s work teams for their efforts in rendering supports to our people to overcome flood situation in 2000, 2001 and drought and flood in 2002.
… I wish to express thanks for a solution that was reached between the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Gold Star Company on issue of land concessions in the districts of Choeung Prey and Batheay. I have ordered the authority to cut them out from the land concession and to return the land to our people. It is a mistake caused by our ways of mapping. We have done the mapping in Phnom Penh before we came to inspect the reality. So it is a lesson for me, which prompted me to review inspections on all concession lands as they are related to our people. I would not accept a situation where investment is made to the extent that there is no land left for our people to cultivate. The people are our priority.
… I have a story to tell you. Some former politicians ranking from district to provincial governors said to me that school buildings were also not sufficient in the past but there were not many request to build schools. As for nowadays there are requests for school wherever Samdech goes. I responded to them that in fact people also wanted to have school buildings but they dare not request. What I said is not to mean negative on anyone but to be frank on reality in our history. In the past our people dare not request for anything because the MPs in those days were inaccessible and unreachable. But the Government officials in the present Government are real servants of our people. Some people said some MPs are outspoken, but the PM is also outspoken too. There are some questions to me as well that when I will stop building schools. My response is that as long as our people continue to have children we will have to go on building schools and providing healthcares. There is no end to this effort. Our constitution stipulates that our children and adults have to finish nine-year education. So it is clearly anticipated that we have to have first level secondary education in communal level.
… I am very pleased to have seen rainwater. It is an advance rain in dry season and it hit various provinces last night – Phnom Penh, Takhmao, Takeo, Kompong Cham, etc. Some people said there is rain when someone with super power is coming. It is not so. It is raining because it is the weather and not miracle. What I am pleased of is that in the past few days I have sent water pumps to help irrigate our people’s dry season rice that are about to ripe and ready for harvest. With the rains we could have a break. What pleases me more is the fact that people in Batheay and Choeung Prey districts are ploughing about 70% of their rainy season rice land already. In some rice fields I noticed that our people have brought cow dung to fertilize the land already… As a true servant to the people, I am very happy with all this developments. I hope that the weather condition in 2003 will continue to be favourable for our cultivation.
… We are also approaching the Khmer New Year (April 14, 15 and 16). I knew that our people, especially youngsters have been organizing popular dances in this regard already… Since 1999, it has been five years already that we have organized the Khmer New Year in peace and in no fear. The whole country enjoys the event and Cambodia has no seceded zones as before. No one is shooting anyone. That is why I mentioned that we have to maintain peace and internal stability and I would urge our authority to take good care of security for our people to enjoy New Year. I would remind that we should encourage our people to take stock of our tradition and enjoy the event with traditional dances and games. Talking about cultural aggression does not justify the reality as no one is forcing us to take theirs but we have accepted others without thought.
… Taking this opportunity I would like to mention a case that is relating to a circulation concerning contracted teachers. Some people have deceived our contracted teachers that they could transfer contracted teachers to Government employed teachers. So if some of you have paid money for those cheaters to transfer your status, please go and take money back from them as this could not be happening for the sake of state reforms. We have our children finishing the university and they have to study in the faculty of pedagogy — central, regional and provincial levels – before becoming a teacher. Our contracted teachers have full right to take exam to study in the school of pedagogy. We estimated a sum of about half a million dollars have been collected already, so the circulation I made hopefully will address the issue clearly.
During the event Samdech Hun Sen offered a school building with five classrooms, fifty sewing machines and three computers with one printer and one copier to the Hun Sen-Skun College and a school building with five classrooms to the Primary School of Roveang, in nthe commune of Khnor Dambang, Choeung Prey District.
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