Municipal officials complained at Monday’s city hall meeting that the company renovating Olympic Stadium has damaged the city’s drainage system.
The officials fear serious flooding in the area if the Yuan Ta Construction and Engineering Co Ltd continues to block the system and dump dirt in its reservoirs.
Municipal drainage officer Nouv Sareoun said that the damaged facilities are essential to preventing floods in the city. He predicted that surrounding neighborhoods and major boulevards will soon be underwater.
Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Than Sina said that Yuan Ta, which the city awarded a $3.6 million contract to renovate the stadium and convert it into apartments, “has created a large headache.”
“The stadium is part of our national heritage,” he said. “[The company] cannot just build this and build that, destroying the original drainage system.”
Than Sina also said the government should have hired the city to do the stadium’s renovations instead of Yuan Ta. He said the city could have found the money to do the work without damaging the drainage system.
Samuth Theoun, governor of Prampi Makara district, said that the blocked drains had already caused major flooding in his district.
“The company will not let us enter the stadium,” he said, “but we were able to see that three of the ponds had been filled with dirt. I told them, ‘You can do what you want, but you cannot block the way of water drainage.’ If this problem is not fixed, we will have to halt the renovation activity.”
Bou Chum Serey, undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Education, said that in late July or early August representatives of Yuan Ta will take a map of the drainage system to City Hall and discuss a solution to the problem.
The stadium renovations are scheduled for completion in August, and 80 percent of the work is done at this point, Bou Chum Serey said. Only the installations of lighting and furnishings remain, he said.
