Massive $23.2B project gets ‘green light’
Several subordinates of a senior minister within the office of the prime minister registered and rubber-stamped a gargantuan $23.2 billion investment project chaired by the minister’s wife, while officials in the know say the project stands little chance of getting off the ground. The massive project was given the green light by Hing Thoraxy from the Council of Ministers and a senior researcher at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, an independent think tank founded by the minister in question, Dr Kao Kim Hourn. “Yes, I signed this agreement for the project but I can’t explain in the detail as I still have to prepare the documents to present to the prime minister,” Thoraxy said on October 13. The project, which is supposed to break ground this year according to official government documents, shows a 4,158-hectare multipurpose tourism resort and a 144-hectare marina that straddles the border between Kep and Kampot province financed by Pallas Brilliant Investment and Development Co Ltd – a company that claims to be developing resorts in Thailand and Vietnam as well.
