Hun Many (left), youngest son of Prime Minister Hun Sen and Say Samal, son of President of the Senate Say Chhum talks in the event recently.
The newly-minted government plans to empower the country’s youth by offering them jobs in the bureaucracy – to groom them as potential administrators and leaders – as part of an agenda to create human capital for the future.
The incoming government also made another key decision that will disallow those holding ministerial positions from working in the civil service and those in government jobs need to resign.
Cambodia is a relatively young country where two-thirds of its 14 million people are under the age of 30 – a country with the largest young population in Southeast Asia.
The talent pool is immense and the government plans to capitalise on it.
Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) spokesman Sok Eysan said yesterday that the list of ministers and deputy ministers who will form the new government has not been released as yet and only Prime Minister Hun Sen has it.
“No one knows who are the members of the government – who will be the secretary of state or under-secretary of state – only Prime Minister Hun Sen has the name list, he knows all of them,” he said.
However, Eysan said, more youth will be offered jobs at the various ministries once the new government starts functioning officially.
“[The announcement to add more youth] is already clear and this is for our future,” he said.
But Eysan said he is unaware of the number of youth who will be included in the new administration.
He said officials who have positions such as senior ministers and those elected as lawmakers or members of the National Assembly must resign their administrative posts.
“They cannot work at the National Assembly and in the government like under the previous mandate,” he said.
Meanwhile, Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan, said once its members are approved by the National Assembly and they have taken the oath at the Royal Palace, Hun Sen will present the list to the King for his consent, before they officially take up their duties.
“The trend of the new government is to create succession, [so] new blood [youth] will be injected into the system,” said Siphan.
Last week, Freshnews reported that Hun Sen’s vision is to hire more youths at ministries or government-run institutions as part of a plan to develop much needed human resources for the future.
Victory Intelligent Standard Association director Ros Sarom, however, is less optimistic of the government’s move to engage more youths. He claimed it will not help to push the country’s development agenda.
He claimed this was obvious when the government announced reforms under the fifth mandate (from 2013 to 2017) but there were no significant results even then.
“The new youth that I see are not new but they are children of senior CPP officials, so it is [not] new youth, but passed down from fathers to children."
“I do not discriminate against anyone, but the important thing is they must be capable of carrying out their jobs efficiently to achieve the new goals,” he said.
