Most workers on National Route 1 who threatened to strike last week have received their back pay, workers and company officials confirmed Monday.
Nopawong Construction Co, Ltd, paid about $50,000 in wages owed to workers on the road, which links Phnom Penh and Bavet, Svay Rieng province, on the Vietnam border.
Nopawong is now waiting for an additional $20,000 from the Ministry of Finance to pay other Cambodian workers and some Thai staff, company officials said.
The company has also been warned by the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation not to try to complete the road all in one stretch, but to leave one lane open to traffic in order to keep the dust down, said Sin Khandy, chief of Cabinet for the ministry.
Ministry officials visited the company last week to encourage it to pay its workers. “We [also] questioned them as to why the construction was so slow,” Sin Khandy said.
The rehabilitation of National Route 1 was scheduled to be completed by 2003, but heavy rains and flooding have delayed the project, according to a Nopawong official.
