I am puzzled that no-one has mentioned the story, that recently surfaced, about the ACU investigating the deputy police chief who heads the Phnom Penh Immigration police. The suggestion is that he heads a group of corrupt officers, who have been extorting foreign businesses.
If this is true, and it concerns the work permit issue, it would open up a whole new can of worms, as if the situation wasn't confused enough already.

Oh, Christ, an ANZ connection, who woulda guessed?

No doubt we will have someone justifying his actions because he has dosh.

@takeoman: 'IF' this is true...LOL

vladimir wrote:Oh, Christ, an ANZ connection, who woulda guessed?

No doubt we will have someone justifying his actions because he has dosh.

@takeoman: 'IF' this is true...LOL

it was reported in the Daily, if my aging memory serves me right, so no guarantee its true.

TheGrinchSR wrote:
It would be fine, if it was a post about someone’s experience. It’s not. It’s a post which tries to extrapolate their experience into “what’s true for everyone”.

What is true? Well, firstly – the law is unclear and is being enforced erratically and inconsistently in some parts of Cambodia.

What would good advice look like? 1. Get a work permit if you work. 2. Otherwise get a work permit if the authorities instruct you to and you can’t argue your way out of it. 3. Stop telling people that your experience is the experience of every expat in Cambodia.

My own experience is – never been asked for a work permit anywhere, never been told to get one anywhere in Cambodia. Yet, there are others who have been told they don’t need a work permit by authorities if they are retired or not working. Still others who have been told that they do. There are people who have had officials come to their homes and tell them to get a work permit. The majority have not had that experience. And so on…

It is obvious you did not read the post thoroughly. I qualified it even in the headline and it is my personal experience. Other than that it is also advice that if you get into a similar situation - as you say yourself - get it if you are forced to. I believe I did say it may not apply everywhere, didn't I? So you and others may not have been approached. In SHV pretty much everybody associated in some way with a business has been visited. There is a long list of all of them at MoL office in SHV. IMO, it is just a matter of time until they get to most, possibly not to all of the expats. I know a guy who has been here 12 years on consecutive E-visas. Yeah, it is only $1,200 but then, what about the people who would be hard put to come up with this kind of money. I explained a certain situation; everybody can draw their own conclusion.
So what's your beef? I always amazes me how some people go off half-cocked so quickly.

[quote="rubberbaron"] In SHV pretty much everybody associated in some way with a business has been visited. /quote]

And pretty much everybody not associated with a business hasn't been visited. Landlords have to register their foreign tenants with local authorities, so the authorities know who all the expats are and where they live, but they are asking ONLY the ones who are working to get work permits. The expats who don't work are being left alone, and at least one high ranking local official has said they don't need work permits.

I don't work in Cambodia and I'm not pimping WP services but the guy who I spoke with was Deputy Director at the DoLVT. These guys (six of them) were all smartly dressed, polite and tidy looking, not flakey border guards. My name's not on the paperwork for the guest house and I was sat having a beer in the bar but the documents they gave me had no wiggle room. My missus was there and she has influential relatives, she'd already told them to get lost for the last six weeks, but there was no getting round it. It's true about the airport thing being shit, there's signs at Immigration saying no money to pay here and I went through unmolested. Oo-er. I'll see what happens when I'm back on Sat.

Cam Nivag wrote:

rubberbaron wrote: In SHV pretty much everybody associated in some way with a business has been visited. /quote]

And pretty much everybody not associated with a business hasn't been visited. Landlords have to register their foreign tenants with local authorities, so the authorities know who all the expats are and where they live, but they are asking ONLY the ones who are working to get work permits. The expats who don't work are being left alone, and at least one high ranking local official has said they don't need work permits.

Spot on. If they were targeting residences... I'm pretty sure that my building would have been visited - I may be the only Western expat full-time here but I'm pretty sure the Koreans and Japanese around me would be worth shaking down; they all appear to have plenty of wedge, that's for certain.

TheGrinchSR wrote:

Cam Nivag wrote:

rubberbaron wrote: In SHV pretty much everybody associated in some way with a business has been visited. /quote]

And pretty much everybody not associated with a business hasn't been visited. Landlords have to register their foreign tenants with local authorities, so the authorities know who all the expats are and where they live, but they are asking ONLY the ones who are working to get work permits. The expats who don't work are being left alone, and at least one high ranking local official has said they don't need work permits.

Spot on. If they were targeting residences... I'm pretty sure that my building would have been visited - I may be the only Western expat full-time here but I'm pretty sure the Koreans and Japanese around me would be worth shaking down; they all appear to have plenty of wedge, that's for certain.

yep, i never saw anything either before i left 2months ago regards to long staying residents, and none of my expat friends mentioned any problems either, only thing i saw was the police going round checking the bars down on the beach of their documents over the space of a few days

I believe I read in the Khmer Times that the MoL processed 25,000 WPs in the first 6 months. With about 80,000 foreigners living here isn't that an indication that the authorities mean business? Never mind, that most of them come from Asian countries.

Cam Nivag wrote:

rubberbaron wrote: 5. If you are retired and don’t work at all, but are here on an E-visa, you will need a WP.

There are thousands of non-working expat retirees in Cambodia. How many of them have been told by authorities to get a work permit or fined for not having a work permit? Is it zero?

The question is not whether you need a wp if you are not working. You don't. In fact, technically you can't get one (leaving aside creative anomalies like rb's work permit to be retired.) The question is whether those without a wp (whatever the reason they don't have one) will be allowed to stay in Cambodia on an E-type visa. The deputy director of immigration at the MoI said that they cannot - that at some point in the future E-type visa extensions will be denied to people without work permits. And no government official has said otherwise (which doesn't necessarily mean it is true.) There is the one MoL guy who has said that retirees don't need a wp, and will be allowed to stay on an "immigration visa," but he did not specify what an 'immigration visa' is. (Perhaps it is the E-type, or all visas, or some yet to be implemented retirement/residence visa.) Lastly, for the law to be the law and subject to enforcement, the authorities do not need to come round to tell you about it personally, nor does the fact that they have not gotten around to you or your neighbors yet mean that it is not the law or that it is not going to be enforced. If the MoI guy is right, they may not ever bother coming around to your house, especially if you are not working, but at some point in the future, without a wp you won't be able to renew your E visa to stay. If that is true, hopefully by that point there will be some new type of visa to accommodate retirees and such so they don't have to leave.