Businesswoman calls on government to return land
High-profile Phnom Penh businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary has called on Prime Minister Hun Sen to return 33 hectares of prime land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district to her company, which lost the rights to it when the government claimed the land in July. Sokountheary said she purchased the 34 hectares from villagers in the north of Pong Peay lake – in Phnom Penh Thmey commune – in 1979, and for the past 13 years, her company Layimex Holding Group has had control of the property. The group was still awaiting a complete land licence – so-called hard plans – that would allow it to build schools, markets, hospitals and health clubs, developments in keeping with the government’s own poverty reduction goals, Sokountheary claims, when a governent sub-decree claimed all but one of the 34 hectares as state property. The July 10 order, signed by Hun Sen, claimed land around the Pong Peay lake area, covering three communes in Sen Sok and Russey Keo districts, as a part of the Ministry of Water Resources’ flood protection policy. …
