Minister faces music on sand
Mines Minister Suy Sem could not give parliament’s anti-corruption commission an acceptable explanation for why Cambodian customs data failed to note $750 million in sand exports that Singapore says it received, the committee’s chairman said after a hearing on December 15. Sem was called in for questioning in the morning by the opposition-led committee, which said it was concerned that UN data showed 72.7 million tonnes of Cambodian sand entering Singapore from 2007 to 2015, but only 2.8 million tonnes leaving Cambodia. The data also showed that the sand being exported to Singapore from Cambodia in that period was worth $752 million, but that the sand recorded leaving Cambodia was worth only $5 million, leading to accusations that sand may have been smuggled out. After a closed-door hearing in the morning, the anti-corruption commission’s chairman, Ho Vann, told reporters that Sem failed to offer a suitable answer for why the UN data, which was supported by Singapore’s customs data, featured such a large discrepancy.
