Wife of Pailin Governor Reaps Benefits From Casino Deal
Venturing into Cambodia’s casino market in May 2011, Macau-backed gambling firm Entertainment Gaming Asia (EGA) promised tens of thousands of dollars to the wife of Pailin’s provincial governor in order to lease land for the construction of a new casino, documents filed with the U.S. financial regulator show. EGA is part of Macau’s Melco Group but is registered and listed in the U.S., and therefore subject to U.S. laws and regulations. The firm officially opened Dreamworld Pailin in May 2012, a casino containing 26 live gaming tables and 58 slot machine seats that relies on Thai visitors crossing the border. As well as Dreamworld Pailin, the company opened a 300-seat slot hall in Poipet City in May. EGA also has plans to open a casino in Kampot province, supplies slot machines to other casinos in Cambodia and manufactures gaming chips. According to filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), EGA in May 2011 signed a deal to build the first Dreamworld casino on land in Pailin rented from Ban Sreymom. Ms. Sreymom is the wife of Y Chhean, who has held the powerful local position of governor in Pailin for more than a decade and was the chief bodyguard Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Ms. Sreymom is herself the CPP lawmaker-elect for Pailin province, having been the winning party’s only candidate for the province’s seat in last month’s national election. The deal saw a new company, Dreamworld Leisure (Pailin) Limited, formed between EGA, represented by chairman Clarence Chung, and Ms. Sreymom, and included a cash payment to the land owner. … Contacted this week, Mr. Chhean insisted there was nothing improper about the land being rented from his wife. “It is correct that they hire the land [from my wife], they have hired it for two years already,” he said. He said the casino was fully approved by the government in Phnom Penh, and that he had no role in the licensing decision. Mr. Chhean said there was nothing inappropriate about the wife of a governor having business interests. “She is an ordinary businesswoman. She is not a civil servant,” he said, adding that the land that was rented to EGA was “ancestral land” that Ms. Sreymom has owned since 1996. The Pailin venture is not the U.S.-listed company’s only link to well connected Cambodians. The company’s Dreamworld Poipet site is rented from well-known businessman Kok An in a similar deal which gives Mr. An, the owner of Crown Casino in Poipet, a 40 percent share of the cash flow. … In Cambodia, it is common for officials’ wives to own shares in business ventures. Mining firm Oz Minerals is still under investigation by police in Australia over an arrangement in Cambodia suspected of breaching a similar anti-bribery law. Oz Minerals, which was exploring for gold in Mondolkiri province, in 2009 bought out a joint venture partner company, whose shareholders included the wives of officials at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy. …
Simon Lewis and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/wife-of-pailin-governor-reaps-benefits-from-casino-deal-40660/
