Four Requests and a 180 Million Riel Budget
A commune council in Takeo province has 180 million riel for its 2025 investment plan. It has received five requests: replace the roof of the primary school (60 million); extend the health post by two rooms (70 million); upgrade 2 km of dirt road to the market (90 million); build a boundary wall at the pagoda (40 million); and a covered market shelter requested by a women’s savings group (15 million). The district governor’s office has told the council that the provincial public works department may fund the road in 2026, but nothing is confirmed. The council must approve a plan at a public meeting, and the law requires public disclosure and a three-year rolling plan. One councillor argues that the pagoda wall should come first because the monks supported the council’s election campaign.
1. Sort the five requests by whether they fall within the commune’s own mandate, a shared mandate, or a line ministry’s mandate, and explain why this matters for the vote.
Read the worked answer
Under the commune’s legal mandate, it is responsible for small local infrastructure and maintenance, and it may support education and health without replacing the line ministries.
- School roof: shared. The school is a ministry responsibility, but the commune can fund urgent maintenance.
- Health post extension: shared, with the provincial health department.
- Road: commune infrastructure, but the province may fund it in 2026.
- Pagoda wall: not a public function; religious construction is not listed as a commune function.
- Market shelter: commune infrastructure, or shared with the market committee.
This matters because spending on a non-mandate item is vulnerable to audit, and because paying twice for a road the province may fund wastes the budget. Classification comes before allocation.
2. Propose an allocation with explicit criteria and explain the trade-offs.
Read the worked answer
Criteria: legal mandate, number of beneficiaries, urgency, co-funding, and equity. One defensible allocation of 180 million riel:
- school roof: 60 million;
- health post: 50 million, with the health department asked for the remaining 20 million;
- road: 20 million for emergency repairs while the province is lobbied for 2026;
- market shelter: 15 million, with a 5 million community contribution;
- pagoda wall: 0;
- reserve: 35 million.
Trade-offs: the roof cannot wait for the rainy season; the full road would consume half the budget and may be funded anyway; the pagoda is excluded on legal grounds, not because the monks’ needs are unreal. The reserve is not slack - it covers price changes and a possible co-funding demand from the health department.
3. The councillor’s argument about the monks’ election support: identify the problem and the process for handling it.
Read the worked answer
The argument is a conflict of interest and a misuse of public office. Election support is not a lawful criterion for spending public money, and treating it as one would convert the investment plan into a reward for political backing.
Process: record the councillor’s interest in the minutes; have the councillor withdraw from discussion and voting on that item; publish the decision and the reasons; and follow procurement rules with at least three quotations and a public opening. If the pagoda wall is genuinely a public safety issue, the council can ask the pagoda committee to fund it or seek a private donation, but public funds should not go to a religious structure.
The principle is that the process must be defensible even to those who lose the vote.