City Hall wants World Bank, NGOs to compensate evicted families
Representatives of some of the 3,000 families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in recent years said Thursday that municipal government officials, who were ultimately responsible for the mass evictions, told them they would be inviting the World Bank and NGOs to help compensate them. The 20 or so former Boeng Kak residents, who claim to represent more than 1,200 of the families who lost their homes when they were evicted by City Hall to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, said municipal government cabinet chief Keut Chhe raised the idea of the World Bank and NGOs paying compensation during a meeting at City Hall. … The World Bank has admitted that mistakes it made designing and carrying out a now-defunct land-titling project it was funding in Cambodia played a part in stripping the Boeng Kak families of their legal land rights. It has since complained, however, that its efforts to help the families have been blocked by a lack of cooperation from the government. … Though the families were offered either an $8,500 cash payout or housing on the outskirts of the city, they say both fell far short of replacing the land they had lost through eviction. … City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche confirmed that the government had been collecting information from evicted families, and that there would be a “workshop” on how to help the families, but he would not specify if the World Bank was invited.
