The Scramble for Cambodia - Hun Sen's Cambodia - page 179

secure exploration rights, payments that can sometimes run into tens of millions of dol-
lars.
The larger the figure, the larger the potential for “irregularities.” In 2006 and 2007,
the Indonesian oil firm PT Medco Energi Internasional announced that it had paid the
government $7.5 million in signing bonuses after securing exploration rights for two oil
blocks, but only a fraction of this figure appeared in the government's annual financial
reports. 33 Around the same time, Jeffrey Bruhjell, president of the Vancouver-based In-
docan Resources, told the Bangkok Post that the company had backed out of Cambod-
ia after high-ranking officials in the Cambodian government demanded “large sums of
money as bribes.” 34 In the mining sector there have also been questions about payments
made by foreign companies. In 2007 the water resources minister Lim Kean Hor de-
scribed a $2.5 million payment from the Australian mining giant BHP Billiton, intended
for a social development fund, as “tea money”—Khmer slang for a bribe. 35
In response to criticisms, the government has taken steps to improve transparency and
publish more information about oil and mineral exploration agreements. In 2010 it began
disclosing some signature bonuses and other payments, and vowed to comply with the
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an international set of benchmarks for re-
sources management. There is still time for concrete improvements. The mineral sector
currently accounts for just a tiny fraction of government revenues, and oil is not expected
to start flowing before 2016. But so far the government's promises have a familiar hollow
ring.
After two decades of Hunsenomics, Cambodia's land is concentrated in fewer hands than
ever. In 2012, the human rights group LICADHO reported that 22 percent of Cambod-
ia's surface area—around 3.9 million hectares—had been granted in ELCs, mining con-
cessions, and other allotments. A map of Cambodia accompanying LICADHO's findings
was a patchwork of colored concession blocks which covered around 53 percent of the
country's arable land. 36 Few parts of the country have been left untouched. Take Koh
Kong, a southwest province of pristine coastland and mountainous jungles. Since 2007
the province's coastal estuaries and marine areas have been devastated by large-scale
sand mining operations run by Ly Yong Phat, another big-time senator-tycoon. US of-
ficials have described Phat as the “King of Koh Kong.” The initials of his LYP Group
are attached to nearly everything in the province: roads, bridges, construction firms,
power-stations. 37 LYP's headquaters are located in a kitschy hotel-casino complex on the
Thai-Cambodian border, a short drive from Koh Kong Safari World, another LYP enter-
prise. (Come for the baccarat, stay for the boxing orang-utans.)
Since dredging operations began in 2007, LYP has exported vast amounts of sand to
Singapore, where it is used for land reclamation and construction. On one visit to coastal