By Mayarith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
"... we don’t believe that SGS is a proper company to perform this task, we believe that the government should consult with donor countries to find an international organization to help investigate whether the information provided in our report is correct or not..." - Simon Taylor, Global Witness DirectorSimon Taylor, Global Witness director, reacted to the investigation report provided by the Swiss firm SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance) by saying that the SGS report cannot be trusted.
This reaction came after SGS said in its report that it never received any report discussing about the names of the officials and businessmen involved in the illegal logging in Kompong Thom province mentioned by the Global Witness report.
Furthermore, the SGS report indicated that the Tumring area, located in Sandan district, which Global Witness claimed that it is subjected to illegal logging activities, it (SGS) did not notice the same observations as those provided by Global Witness.
Global Witness’ Simon Taylor said that a visit by SGS to the spot of the area mentioned would be beneficial for this Swiss company, rather than waiting to receive a report from someone else.
Simon Taylor said: “For a company such as SGS, which claims to be independent, it should have the ability and the duty to gather its own information, it should not wait for someone else to easily provide the information to them. I think that this is merely a poor excuse for a job poorly performed, and instead it (SGS) turns around to blame on the fact that it never receives any information or that it did not receive the information from the various institutions.”
In a televised report broadcasted this week, Robert Pannet, SGS director, accused the Global Witness report of having political motives and that this is a report provided by a group that lacks independence.
Simon Taylor said that the Cambodian government ought to find another investigation group that has better capability than SGS.
Simon Taylor said: “We believe that it is not good that the forestry monitoring company SGS participates in the investigation of this case. Nevertheless, we insist that the government investigates in details the activities we reported, and we also welcome the questions raised by Minister Khieu Kanharith who wants to see more monitoring done to confirm that our investigations were not done properly. However, we don’t believe that SGS is a proper company to perform this task, we believe that the government should consult with donor countries to find an international organization to help investigate whether the information provided in our report is correct or not. But we stress one more time that the Swiss forestry monitoring company SGS is a not a proper company to perform this task.”
There is no reaction yet from government officials regarding the latest comments made by Global Witness.
6 comments:
Yes, Tailor...we believe in you. The SGS is a dum and treacherous company in cambodia or a slave of hun sen clan only.
Here is more background regarding the activities of SGS:
In April 2007 Greenpeace published a study about "Carving up the Congo" . You can download the study (4 parts, more than 15 MB) here:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports?related_item_id=158505
A 250 kb summary is here:
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/carving-up-the-congo-exec.pdf
One of the companies with an obviously criminel strategie is SIFORCO. This comapny is a subsidary of the large german wood comapny DANZER Group. In Europe - and in germany - it is more and more important for such companies to get certificates like the FSC Label to claim themselves as "good" companies in any meaning: sustainable, non corrupt eg, eg... Otherwise the majority of the consumer will not buy their products! So - it is urgent necessary to get these Labels.
Danzer managed the first step in achieving this FSC - Label in October 2006 for their subsidary SIFORCO in Congo.
Who made that possible? SGS!
Read the article:
http://www.danzergroup.com/Press_Releases_Detail.87.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=347&tx_ttnews[backPid]=80&cHash=53926c38c6
SGS? This group is extremely BIASED toward the Communist especially the one in Cambodia.
Using SGS is a jerk.
moi28 - SGS is a stock - based swiss company, responsible only to their shareholder. They do work for money, not for politics. They do work for any client, if he is a cambodian communist, a congolian dictator or a latin american democrat. They are biased toward money.
Try to see these developments in a bigger frame.
SGS maintains this old concept of the SWISS bank, "Money has no smell". SGS becomes a satellite of the HS government and must do everything to keeps it job and to please the Government.Big SHAME for this group of SWISS people. You are loosing your Credit worlwide, SGS!
the honest one is the one who can tell the truth with no fear of any kinds... the rest money hun-hungery..they like to stall, that their skills...eeyore
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