Civil Coalition Slams ‘Unlawful’ Sugar Concessions

Villagers in Kampong Speu protest against Phnom Penh Sugar Company for land grabbing. (Photo: by Heng Reaksmey)

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
Wednesday, 12 May 2010

The government has granted tens of thousands of hectares of unlawful land concessions to a small group of companies, some of them owned by the same person, a coalition of rights groups said Wednesday.

The concessions violated portions of the land law and a sub-decree on economic land concessions, according to the coalition, comprised of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, NGO Forum and Housing Rights Task Force.

The law says that each concession must be below 10,000 hectares for any individual owner of a company.

But an investigation into the deals found “that although different locations are granted as land economic concessions to different company names, they are of course run and owned by only the same physical person with the size bigger than 10,000 hectares,” according to the coalition.

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