Government announces all workers and civil servants to work as normal during Khmer New Year

• 8 April 2020
• Local News
• 3322 Views

Samdech Techo Hun Sen has announced that all workers and civil servants are to continue to work as normal during the Khmer New Year to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during the Khmer New Year.

The announcement was made at a press conference on updating the current situation of COVID-19 in Cambodia at the Peace Palace on 7 April 2020.

Samdech ordered that “All workers and civil servants are not allowed to have a holiday on Khmer New Year this year and must work normally to prevent any social gathering that could spread the COVID-19 from one person to another in the community.”

“At the moment, factories, companies and any institutions are the safest options. If we allow people to have any social gathering during Khmer New Year, there will be a high-risk after the festival. Please, my dear fellow citizens, be highly considerate of the situation in our nation right now,” said Samdech.

Following this announcement, Mr Meas Proeksa, Administrative Manager of Ly Chhuong Construction Company, supported the government’s measure, saying that it will help to reduce the number of social gatherings in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 for the upcoming of Khmer New Year holiday.

“This measure is an opportunity to reduce the number of social gatherings, especially to avoid the physical interactions between workers who are planning to go back to their homeland during the Khmer new year. More seriously, for those workers who just returned from foreign countries as they are now still putting under health monitoring to avoid being contagious in the community. If the Holiday is allowed, once after they return to resume their works, the unexpected outbreak risks could be out of control” he said.

“Recently, we have seen a large number of workers, especially construction workers, who just returned from Thailand being put in isolation for 14 days in obedience to the Ministry of Health announcement,” he added.

According to an announcement by Interior Minister Sar Kheng on 26 March 26, more than 40,000 Cambodians returned to Cambodia before the closure of Thai-Cambodia border.

According to a report by the Ministry of Labour, there are about 10 million workers and civil servants in Cambodia in 2020 and approximately 200,000 construction workers (Building and Wood Workers Trade Union Federation of Cambodia data).

There will be a five-day holiday payout for all workers at a reasonable time in the future, which will be announced soon, according to the Prakas of the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training.

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