Inquiry afoot after sand shipping video goes viral
The Ministry of Mines and Energy on May 2 said it was investigating potential irregularities in the export of sand after a video from the NGO Mother Nature claiming that banned exports continued unabated went viral yesterday, racking up hundreds of thousands of “likes”. While the ministry maintained that the sand seen in the video was likely not subject to the ban, it added that it would look into other apparent irregularities related to the export permits. The export of most mined sand was banned by the government last November after controversy erupted surrounding huge discrepancies between the government’s recorded sand exports, and recorded imports of Cambodian sand to Singapore. However, the Mother Nature video, which was purportedly taken on April 29, shows what appears to be white sand being loaded from a boat onto a larger ship off of Sihanoukville.
