Residents at a housing development in Phnom Penh say they have not been given land titles for homes and land they purchased from a real estate developer, alleging the company pawned their properties.
The Supreme Court on Thursday denied bail to a land broker who claimed he wasn’t aware he was falsifying documents, after he was arrested alongside seven others in relation to land conflicts in Preah Sihanouk’s Bit Traing commune.
Mondulkiri has been a hotbed for illegal land grabs and land speculation. Interior Minister Sar Kheng in October warned local officials from engaging in land grabs and corruption.
More than 20 families in Koh Kong province, where authorities have been razing villagers’ farmland, are asking officials to formalize their ownership as they fear the land clearings will continue.
A further 20 hectares of Boeng Tamok, one of Phnom Penh’s “last lakes,” is being granted to a private individual, with mapping coordinates appearing to show the plot is on an area that is already being made landfill.
As part of a massive government campaign to privatize land, ostensibly for poor families, Cambodia has cut off nearly 127,000 hectares from Koh Kong’s protected parks. In part one of reports from the province, Tuol Koki commune residents laugh off the prospects of benefiting from the campaign.
The Environment Ministry has told all provincial governors to immediately stop the issuing of land certificates in protected areas such as biodiversity corridors, saying 70 sanctuaries in 11 provinces were facing encroachment.
Villagers occupying state land on a Mekong river island in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district are refusing to back down amid confrontations and negotiations with authorities, pointing to nearby mansions and land claimed by a senator and police chief who aren’t getting similarly harassed.
About 30 people gathered in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh residence on Thursday seeking his help to secure titles for land on Boeng Tamok, one of Phnom Penh’s “last lakes,” which in recent years has been divvied up for development on reclaimed land.
The Religion Ministry will now require pagodas to have hard land titles as part of an effort to better regulate religious institutions in the country, a move some monks said would tighten authorities’ control of monks who participate in social work.
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