Ministry building sold off to developer

Hun Xen's cronies: Lao Meng Khin (under the umbrella) and Chhoeung Sopheap aka Yay Phu (in red blouse) (Photo: CPP)

A monk walks past the Ministry of Cults and Religions’ National Committee for Organising National and International Festivals on Tuesday. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Thursday, 25 March 2010
Cheang Sokha and James O’toole
The Phnom Penh Post

OFFICES of the Ministry of Cults and Religions have been transferred to local investment company Pheapimex in a property deal that some observers say is an example of the malfeasance that characterises the Kingdom’s public land management.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, officials from the Ministry of Cults and Religions’ National Committee for Organising National and International Festivals said they had received a letter from Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) lawyer Khiev Sepphan dated last Friday that asked them to vacate their offices on Sisowath Quay by the end of the month.

“If you do not follow this notification, the lawyer will make a report to the CPP office to pursue further measures,” read the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Post.

The letter instructed the officials to move to new offices at the General Inspectorate for the National Buddhist Education of Cambodia and hand over control of their current facilities to Choeung Sopheap, owner of Pheapimex and wife of CPP senator Lao Meng Khin.

Accounts of how the deal had been brokered differed among ministry officials.

One said that Minister of Cults and Religions Min Khin had sold the building to Choeung Sopheap last April, whereas another said the building was being exchanged for Pheapimex land near the Council of Ministers to be used by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

But regardless of how the deal was made, one official said, staff at the committee had been dealt with unfairly.

“We know that the current office has been sold to the private company, but we don’t understand why they used the CPP name to influence us,” he said, adding that the new proposed facilities are too small and lack meeting rooms.

“If they keep us working there without a proper location, that would be unacceptable,” he said.

Khiev Sepphan said he was simply acting on Min Khin’s behalf, declining to discuss specifics of the deal.

“I have informed His Excellency Min Khin that he should negotiate with those officials so that both sides can reach a solution,” Khiev Sepphan said.

Min Khin said Tuesday that he was too busy to comment, and Choeung Sopheap could not be reached for comment.

Legality questioned

The Pheapimex transfer is just one in a series of deals over the past few years in which government facilities have been offered to private companies with ties to the CPP. Former Ministry of Tourism facilities on Monivong Boulevard and Phnom Penh Municipal Police headquarters on Street 51 are now controlled by the Phanimex development company, and land near the National Assembly that once held the Bassac Theatre is now controlled by the Royal Group, as is the former site of the National Radio headquarters in Daun Penh district.

Yeng Virak, executive director of the Community Legal Education Centre, said such transfers of state public property were illegal under the Kingdom’s 2001 Land Law, which states that state public properties may not be transferred to private hands unless they “lose their public-interest use”. This provision was reinforced in a 2005 sub-decree.

“To our knowledge, there’s no such law on transfer of this state public property to state private property,” Yeng Virak said, arguing that this process is instead carried out through methods that “supersede the law”, with sub-decrees issued to convert public property to private property after deals have already been made.

“Very often, the public does not know the justification for conversion,” Yeng Virak said. “Nobody knows.”

Sam Rainsy Party spokesman Yim Sovann said the companies benefiting from such transfers are not subject to a competitive, public bidding process that could ensure that they pay market prices for the property.

“The most powerful politicians are behind these companies. These companies can do whatever they want in Cambodia, especially they buy or swap or transfer the state property,” Yim Sovann said.

Sung Bonna, president of Bonna Realty Group, said property transfers must be conducted in a transparent manner, though he added that it was unsurprising that just a small group of companies appear to have benefited from such exchanges.

“So far, it’s not so many people that can afford to do this,” he said. “We do not say that it’s negative ... countries in development always have this kind of thing.”

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan referred questions to the Ministry of Land Management, where spokeswoman Nun Theary said she did not have information on the issue at hand.

Government in tourist hub of Siem Reap to quit town in land swap

Thu, 18 Mar 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - The local government in Cambodia's tourist hub of Siem Reap is to relocate outside the city next month in an opaque property swap that is to see a private company take over government buildings, many on prime riverfront land, national media reported Thursday. The news followed a number of similar reports about swaps of government land in central Phnom Penh, which has rocketed in value in recent years, for cheaper land outside the capital. Details of the deals are seldom made public.

Siem Reap Deputy Governor Bun Tharith told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that every provincial government department would move to the new site except one, the meteorology office, whose specialized equipment means it has to stay in the city.

"It is a special plan, and it is good for providing efficient services," he said. "The old buildings will be handed over to the company for investment. This happens in every developed country."

However, neither he nor the Ministry of Interior, which has authority over the deal, would be drawn on the details of the land swap or the cost of the new 42-hectare site, which is located 16 kilometres from the city centre.

Siem Reap is home to the Angkor Wat temple complex, which draws millions of local and foreign tourists each year.

Hun Sen orders to stop land swapping ... but it's way too late, most of them have been swapped already

Hun Sen asks Education and Health Ministers to stop swapping state lands

25 September 2007
Rasmei Kampuchea Newspaper
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

Prime minister Hun Sen issued a letter on 21 September to the education minister and the health minister, telling them not to swap any schools or hospitals, and telling them to prreserve these facilities “in order to respond to the increasing needs of our population.”

Hun Sen’s letter indicated: “In the past, middle men have asked to swap school buildings, heath care facilities, and hospitals in Phnom Penh city and in a number of provinces and municipalities also. It’s true that in the past effort of the royal government of Cambodia to develop education and heath, our state needed to build many additional schools and hospitals, in order to respond to the increasing daily needs of our population.

The current locations of school and hospital facilities were selected based on the living condition of our people, to ease the school traveling for young children, as well as for the ease in the rescue (operation) and health care.”

The letter stressed: “Therefore, I ask that Your Excellencies, the senior minister and ministers, protect and preserve the current school and hospital locations, including all elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities, as well as all heath care facilities and hospitals in the city of Phnom Penh, and in all the provinces and municipalities, and there should absolutely be no swapping of these locations.”

Hun Sen added: “I am confident that Your Excellency will take appropriate and firm measures to put into application the goal specified above, in order to provide advantages to the development and the good health of young children and of our people in the entire country.”

Artists protesting the closing of Tonle Bassac Theater

Thursday, August 16, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

About 150 artists have gathered outside the Tonle Bassac Theater in Phnom Penh on Wednesday morning to protest the moving of the theater to a new location, and they are also protesting the fact that the Ministry of Culture provided them only a meager compensation amount of $300 each. The Cambodia Daily reported that the artists were told to move out of the theater by the end of the month, however, the artists demanded $700 each in compensation, just like what the Ministry of Culture paid to each employee of the Royal University of Fine Arts (URBA) when this group relocated themselves from Phnom Penh to Russei Keo district in 2005. In 2005, the Ministry of Culture signed an agreement to swap the land occupied by the burnt theater to Kith Meng, chairman of the Mobitel telephone company, in exchange for the renovation this building which was gutted by fire in 1994.

If MoI is moved to Boeng Snor [once a famous red lantern district], will the Council of Ministers office be moved to Svay Pak next?

Current Ministry of Interior sold?

Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper reported that, in the past 2 weeks, rumors have been circulating that the current office of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has been sold, and it will be moved to a new yet-to-be-determined location. Other rumors claim that the MoI office could be moved to new reclaim lands in the Boeng Snor area [once a famous red lantern district]. Other rumors circulated that after the 2008 election, the MoI could be split into two separate departments: (1) the MoI in charge of civilian administration, and (2) the security department in charge of police security. Regarding this issue, Khieu Sopheak, MoI spokesman, told Rasmei Kampuchea that he did not receive clear information from the MoI leadership about the office move, he said that these are merely rumors. Regarding the splitting of the MoI, Khieu Sopheak quoted Hun Sen, who declared in a seminar held last year in Sihanoukville, that this ministry (MoI) cannot be split, if it is split, then it is like having toothless provincial governors.

The perpetrator of land-grabbings, land-evictions, land-confiscations, land-concessions calls for a seminar to help solve land disputes

May 30, 2007
Cambodian PM calls for seminar to help solve land disputes

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen here on Wednesday urged for a seminar to find solutions for land disputes that have made a lot of trouble for the kingdom for the past years.

"I want to open a seminar on land issues which are happening every day," he said while addressing a graduation ceremony of a local college.

Early in 1989, the government demarcated the land for all the people across the country, but in the coming years, part of them sold their land for treating illness, paying debts of gambling and some other reasons, he said.

Land disputes surged especially in recent years, as some people seized others' land illegally, thus planting instability within the society, he added.

In March, Hun Sen ordered to arrest several government officials for illegal land grabbing. He called this a war, which must be waged to root out factors of social riots and instability.

Source: Xinhua

Land swap near Royal Palace canceled

23 May 2007
By Uk Sav Bory
Radio Free Asia (a station labeled insolent by Hun Sen)
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

The spokesman for the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said, on Wednesday, that the council of ministers has canceled the land swap with the Phanimex company for a plot of land directly adjacent to the fence of the royal palace, and the plot is now preserved as a state property to be used by security guards for the king, as it was done in the past.

Khieu Sopheak said that about 3-4 months ago, Sar Kheng, the Vice-prime Minister and Minister of Interior, asked the Prime Minister to resolve the issue of the over 1-hectare plot of land formerly occupied by the Supplies Department of the MoI, located next to the Royal Palace, which was swapped with the Phanimex for development. Hun Sen decided to preserve this plot for use by the royal guards as it was done in the past.

Khieu Sopheak added that, according to the government sub-decree, there will be no land swap for the Phanimex company. “Samdech PM decided to preserve this Royal Palace land and turn it into a property of the MoI, it will be handed to the bodyguards who were previously called the royal guards. This transfer is not accompanied by any other land swap.”

However, Suy Sophan, owner of the Phanimex company, said on Wednesday that her company agrees to return back the 14,710-square-meter plot (1.47-hectare) to the government, and that the MoI asked her to swap it with another piece of land instead.

Suy Sophan said: “This land was given to us by the government, but now the government needs it or the Ministry needs it, I return it back, and the MoI said that it will find another place to swap (with the one near the royal palace).”

According to a knowledgeable official, the over-1-hectare plot of land located Southwest of the royal palace, next to the Kunthabopha II children hospital, and behind the former elephant pen, was the ground used by royal guards in the past.

Following the 1979 invasion, the plot was turned into the Supplies Department of the MoI because, during that time, Cambodia was a republic. At the time, the government announced that it swapped the land with the Phanimex company for development.

Following the announcement, several sources, including royal family members, government officials, and the population, severely criticized the land swap. The government was then accused of not properly preserving cultural heritage and turning them to private companies for development instead.

Another Hun Sen's broken promise: Hun Sen personally signed order for gov't offices move, paving the way for another land swapping in Siem Reap

Friday, May 04, 2007
Gov’t offices to move to outskirt

Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

A large number of government offices in the province of Siem Reap currently located in downtown, will be moved to the city outskirt. A sub-decree dated 05 April signed by Hun Sen, orders the moving of the government offices from its current location to a new government office built on a 40-hectare plot which will be built in the near future. The Cambodia Daily reported that a copy of the sub-decree it received on Thursday, listed almost all government departments, and ordered them to move to the new building located 4 to 5 kilometers from downtown Siem Reap. Sou Phirin, the Siem Reap governor, said that this move will help facilitate the expansion of the city which now lacks space. He said that if the government does not move its offices, then people will have to be moved out to the city outskirt instead.

KI-Media Note: The Cambodia Daily reported also that the new government office building will be constructed by the G&R Construction Co. Ltd. In exchange, G&R will take possession of the current government buildings in the booming Siem Reap downtown.