One million postage stamps bearing the image of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s wife Bun Rany, who heads the Cambodian Red Cross, have been produced by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, officials said Wednesday.
All proceeds from the sale of the $0.38 and $0.48 stamps, which feature the Cambodian Red Cross logo and photos of Bun Rany visiting children and handing out aid, will go to the Red Cross, said Preap Sorithy, director of the posts department at the ministry.
Production of the stamps was paid for with funds from the national budget, Preap Sorithy added, though he said he could not recall how much this cost.
“[The stamps] are just about the activities of the Red Cross and stopping discrimination against AIDS patients,” he said, adding that it is common for his ministry to print stamps bearing the images of “outstanding people.”
A series of stamps produced in 2004 to raise money for the Cambodian Red Cross, at least one of which bears Bun Rany’s image, are still in circulation.
Ouk Damry, deputy president of the Cambodian Red Cross, said the organization has earned $7,500 from selling the stamps since 2004.
SRP lawmaker Yim Sovann said he supported education about disease prevention. But he claimed that the stamps are aimed at bolstering the image of the prime minister’s wife, and are therefore political. He also said that the sales from the stamps should be put back into the national budget.
