Plots of land are now up for sale at the site of the Kompong Thom provincial town sports stadium, teachers and education department officials said Monday.
Provincial education department official Khim Seng, who declined to give his job title, said that his department sold about 3 hectares of the stadium’s land to a private company in January, but he could not provide the name of the company, or the price that the land had sold for.
A new stadium is now under construction about 6 km outside the provincial capital, he said.
Chan Maly, an administrative officer with the provincial education department, said that the land was sold by high-ranking officials of the Education Ministry, but she also was unaware of the identity of the buyers.
“The company plans to build apartments here,” she said.
A person answering the telephone at the number listed on the for-sale signs posted at the stadium site refused to provide the name of the company involved, when questioned by a reporter Monday.
Cambodian Independent Teach-ers Association provincial director Sun Thon said Monday that state property should not be sold in secrecy to private interests.
“This is corruption,” Sun Thon said by telephone.
“They’ve moved the stadium to the outskirts of town, and we don’t even know how much the land sold for yet,” he said.
On Feb 18, SRP lawmaker Men Sothavarith wrote a letter to the Education Ministry and the Na-tional Assembly that asked, “Why is the new stadium being built on the outskirts of town while the old stadium is divided into plots for sale?”
Men Sothavarith said by telephone Monday that he wrote the letter hoping for clarification from the government on the sale of the stadium, but he has yet to receive a reply.
Education Ministry Secretary of State Mak Vann referred questions about the sale of the sports stadium to Chea Eoeung, undersecretary of state in charge of construction, who said he would not speak with a reporter by telephone.
