Theng Panha Thon said the government prepared beforehand a portion of the budget to be used in the event of a rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the Kingdom. Heng Chivoan
A government delegate in charge of the Directorate General of Planning, Theng Panhathorn, said the spread of Covid-19 in the Kingdom will affect its National Strategic Development Plan because of budget re-allocations and delays in collecting national census data.
The announcement was made at a press conference entitled Progress and setting of goals of the Ministry of Planning held by the Government Spokespersons Unit at the Council of Ministers. Also present at the press conference was a ministry official in charge of statistics.
“The government prepared beforehand a portion of the budget to be used in the event of a rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the Kingdom. This has now happened.
“Therefore, this portion of the budget has now been allocated to Samdech Techo’s [Prime Minister Hun Sen’s] phase two plan and been assigned to assist in combating the virus.
“This has meant that our efforts and our budget have been diverted towards Covid-19 and away from our development strategy,” he said.
Panhathorn said for the first phase, the government had ordered the Ministry of Economy and Finance to begin reallocation of government budgets in preparation for moving to phase two.
The ministry’s National Statistics Institute director, Hang Lina, said the Covid-19 problem had also affected the nationwide census.
“As issues around the virus began to emerge, some volunteer officials and students stopped coming to work. The ministry also took days off from work, so it has affected the collection of data,” she said.
“Consequently, some work has not been carried out according to plan. We will have to investigate what has been missed and revise it,” she said.
She said regarding the census, the ministry had collected data from more than 3.3 million families thus far.
“The ministry has sent around 150 officials to revise the statistics and register relevant code numbers, and another 150 officials will transfer the data to computers.
“So, in computerising the data of more than three million families, officials will have to revise data on 6,500 families a month in order to fully review our findings.
“We hope to end this census work in April, in line with the plan. If that is achieved then we should be able to announce the census results in July,” she said.
However, Lina also admitted that if the Covid-19 issue persists, then it will force further delays to the work and the presentation of final census results.
