Bank Backs Displaced Families’ Compensation

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), one of the two major financiers of the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railways, yesterday rejected criticism that they were providing insufficient resettlement packages to residents displaced by the project. On Friday, the ADB released a cost study that showed that the compensation rates being offered to displaced people were based on 2006 prices, and have not been altered for inflation in recent years. The ADB cost estimates drew the ire of housing rights groups, who noted that costs, particularly of construction materials, are now substantially more expensive. …