The government is asking property developers to show leniency toward people struggling to pay installments on their gated homes and condominiums, even as a spokesman said a separate youth-led campaign calling for suspending microfinance repayments was illegal.
The Culture Ministry has announced that NagaCorp’s proposed $350-million theme park and resort near Siem Reap’s Angkor temples cannot be built as proposed, with an official adding that the “huge scale” development would disturb religious activity.
The government stopped short of postponing the Khmer New Year holidays amid the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, announcing that businesses can choose to delay the three-day Khmer New Year holidays until Pchum Ben or another time later in the year but government offices would be closed April 14-16.
More than 1,000 NagaWorld workers have joined an online campaign against suspended salaries after the casino closed due to Covid-19 infections among employees, workers and a union representative said.
Some residents of locked-down Kandal province villages say they must stay home and are being checked by police and health officers daily after more than 80 Covid-19 cases were found in two days and the district ordered all businesses to close.
Hundreds of workers crowded outside Phnom Penh’s NagaWorld casino as many returned for their second Covid-19 tests following the discovery of several cases there, a workers’ boycott and the suspension of operations last week.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said in an audio message late Monday that the country had found 49 more Covid-19 cases, and called for state institutions to work largely from home and private businesses to reduce staff numbers in their workplaces.
More than 700 out of 5,000 workers at a Phnom Penh garment factory have been tested after a single Covid-19 case was found among employees, but work continues in eight of nine buildings and crowds keep packing the factory grounds during breaks.
After NagaWorld workers began a work boycott over the weekend about employees being kept in the dark about Covid-19 cases at the casino, its owner NagaCorp announced it would act “responsibly and swiftly to volunteer to temporarily suspend its business.”
Thousands of NagaWorld union and nonunion workers stayed home from work at Phnom Penh’s sole casino and hotel complex over the weekend and on Monday as some workers said they had tested positive for Covid-19, but little information was made available by the company, workers said.
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