ADB Won’t Pay to Finish Rail Project
Having already spent millions of dollars, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will not foot the additional $70 to $90 million in funds still needed to complete more than half of Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project, an official from the ADB said yesterday. Toll Royal Railways, a joint venture between Australia’s Toll Holdings and the Cambodia conglomerate Royal Group, has a 30-year concession to operate the railway. On Friday, Toll Holdings told the Finance Ministry in a letter that it would suspend its work because the sub-contracted firms that are building the railway network were taking too long, and the project is now not profitable. The ADB has so far contributed $84 million as part of $141.6 million in funds to rehabilitate the dilapidated network, which is being built by sub-contractors TSO Co Ltd, of France, and Sino Pacific Construction Corp, a company based in Vietnam. …
