The government has given a building that previously housed the National Committee for Disaster Management, the Cambodia Mine Action Authority and the government’s human rights committee to an undisclosed company in exchange for $100,000 and the construction of two new buildings, officials said.
Buon Lim Heng, director of the Council of Ministers’ logistics and budget department, said the government decided to go ahead with the deal, for which there was no bidding process, because the three institutions were too cramped in the Monivong Boulevard building.
“The old building was small…. The new building has enough space,” he said.
The Monivong Boulevard building was vacated in February and the developing company, the name of which Buon Lim Heng said he could not recall, began razing it last weekend, he said.
Buon Lim Heng said he was unsure what the company in question would construct where the old offices stood, but he said that, in return, they had already built a three-story building in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district and a warehouse in Daun Penh district in addition to paying the Finance Ministry $100,000.
Cambodia Mine Action Authority Deputy Secretary-General Leng Sochea said his offices and those of the other two organizations had moved into the Tuol Kok building in February.
“We have more rooms in the new office,” said National Committee for Disaster Management Vice President Ly Thuch.
SRP lawmaker Son Chhay said it was unlawful for the government to broker the deal without first opening it to a fully public bidding process.
