Wednesday, March 14, 2012
[Australian Company] Toll to quit Cambodia rail plans
Lindsay Murdoch
WA Today (Australia)
AUSTRALIAN company Toll Group is set to pull
out of a controversial
$145 million project to rebuild Cambodia's railways,
reliable sources in Cambodia say.
Under an agreement signed in
2009, Toll and a Cambodian joint venture partner were to operate the
railways for 30 years.
The project, partly funded by the Australian aid agency AusAid,
has been at the centre of claims that up to 4000
people living along the tracks are not being fully compensated for
having to move. A Toll spokesman declined to comment.
The rebuilding of two decrepit
rail lines linking the capital, Phnom Penh, with a southern port and
with the Thai border in the west is strategically important.
They were seen as part of a
planned inter-country rail network linking Singapore and China through
Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The Toll Group had a 30-year contract in a
joint venture with well-connected Cambodian businessman Kith Meng through his Royal
Group of companies.
In November last year, Fairfax
Media reported that a 13-year-old girl and
her nine year-old brother drowned in a deep pool four days after
their family was uprooted from their home and moved to a resettlement
site so work could begin on the railway.
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