NGOs Say Railway Compensation Report Devalues Homes

Housing rights groups yesterday criticized resettlement packages paid out by the government and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to people displaced by the rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railways, saying the packages do not account for growing inflation. … A joint statement issued yesterday by Housing Rights Task Force, Bridges Across Borders and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) called on the ADB to adjust its resettlement packages to include inflation. “[The] ADB cannot claim on the one hand that there has been a significant rise in the construction costs for the railway development, but no inflation for the cost of housing materials and daily subsistence in Cambodia,” Sia Phearum, secretariat director of the Housing Rights Task Force, said in a statement. …