Since I have authorize the Ministry of Transports and Public Works to approve the traffic of the right-hand drive vehicles, about 1000 right-hand drive vehicles have been offered number plates. I have discussed with HE Sun Chan Thol about a possibility of allowing our people of right-hand drive vehicles to bypass also the charge for their vehicles’ negligence for mechanical check-up. I think it is better that we have to prolong our mandate for mechanical checkup for those cars in Phnom Penh. For those in remote provinces I think we will have to send the equipment there for their vehicles’ checkup or our people would not send their vehicles a long way just for checkup. As for vehicles – waiting for Cambodian number plates – put on foreign number plates have to be placed under control.
The Ministry has to deal with complaints from our people who are not happy with irregularities in provision of driving license and car number plates. It has been the case that some people requested for driving licenses and because they did not give much money their requests have been neglected for a long time. There has also been a case that if their requests did not attach some money, they would have to wait for a long time. I hope this will be settled though I have seen that it has been improved to an extent.
We are in the process of transporting rails from Malaysia while de-mining is underway. ADB has provided us money to connect the rail together from Si Sophon to Poi Pet. We will also get a rail connection from Kratie to Loc Ninh of Vietnam as well. In our meeting with the private sector, there has been a demand for the Royal Government to repair all roads and the Royal Government also demands in return that the private sector has to respect the limit of their loads. I wish to ask the Ministry of Transport and Public Works to coordinate with private sector in solving this problem together.
The achievements of the Ministry has been a 2480 Kilometer asphalt road, 2096 laterite covered road and 879 bridges. The Ministry has installed 182 Bailey bridges of 5454 meters. What remains to be of serious concern has been the fact that bridges built will be destroyed by overload trucks. I am glad that we have a monitor who ordered the ban of logging until 2012, which also has a positive impact on our roads and bridges. Income from logging has been small and incomparable to the destruction of roads and bridges at all if it were to be continued in a manner that was practiced in between 1993 and 1998.
We have another matter in relation to ships carrying Cambodia’s flag. Cambodia does not have a ship but ships with flag of Cambodia are everywhere in the world. A Cambodian-flagged ship once loaded with drugs and docked in France. Through its embassy the French Prime Ministers sought my cooperation on that matter. I told them to capture it. This is a matter that I instruct the Ministry and institutions concerned to put a stop immediately as this has discredited Cambodian reputation in the world. I wish the matter inspected and corrected immediately. It could have been a matter of disguising by the ships but our registration procedure will have to be inspected as well./.
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