Revenues from Entrance Fees to Angkor Wat ( Went Missing in Corruption?)

Local as well as international tourists visiting the famed Angkor Wat in great numbers.

12th March 2008
By Mao Sotheany
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer to English by Khmerization

Mr Son Chhay, who is a member of parliament and chairman of the parliamentary committee from the Sam Rainsy Party has, on Tuesday, reacted in response to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s letter which stated that the revenues collected by the Sokha Hotel Group from the sales of tickets to tourists who come to visit Angkor Wat have been properly audited and accounted for by the Ministry of Finance and the National Audit Authority.
Mr Son Chhay indicated that annually the State Treasury had lost approximately $US30 million of the $US60 collected from the sales of the tickets to tourists who visit Angkor Wat. He said that the numbers of tourists visited Cambodia in 2007 were 2 million, not 1 million as stated by the prime minister. Mr Son Chhay said: “The figures from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as from the Ministry of Tourism stated that the numbers of tourists visited Cambodia were as high as 2.4 million visitors. And the calculated numbers of tourists to Angkor Wat of 1 million visitors are the in correct figures. And secondly, the method which Oknha Sok Kong company collected the revenues from the tourists, in January I have personally visited the sales office on the spot, the staff there told me that there is a directive ordering them not to keep any receipts and documents related to the sales of the tickets in the computer data.”
Mr Son Chhay also claimed that, according to the information he obtained from his inquiry when he visited the ticket sales office, Kong Kong’s company has transferred approximately $US6 million per month from the proceeds of the ticket sales from Siem Reap to a bank account in Phnom Penh.
Mr Son Chhay said: “Furthermore we’ve received information that Sok Kong’s company has transferred not less than $US6 million per month of the revenues collected from the sales of the tickets to a bank account in Phnom Penh. In total, according to our calculations, considering that each ticket was sold for $US20, $US40 or $US60, the amounts released were not correct, if we take into account that the sales of $US60 accounted for less than 40% of the numbers of visitors. In total, I believe that the revenues collected from the sales of the tickets to Angkor Wat can be as high as $US60 million, not the $US30 as claimed by Sok Kong’s company.”
Even though the Prime Minister has written a letter to the parliament on the 3rd of March which stated that the numbers of tourists were only estimated at 1 million tourists a year, his speech on Wednesday in a meeting to review the works of the Ministry of Tourism stressed that the numbers of tourists were estimated at approximately the same as the statistics from the Ministry of Tourism in the website http://www.mot.gov.kh/, which are the same figures as claimed by Mr Son Chhay.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said: “I applaud and value the arrivals of international tourists which estimated at 2 million in 2007 who have brought incomes estimated at about $1.4 billion to our nation, which is accounted to 10% of our Growth Domestic Product and have created 300,000 jobs for our people.”
The 5-year contract of concessions signed on 17th June 2005 between the government and the Sokha Hotel Group stated that the amount of up to $US3 million from the sales of the tickets to Angkor will be split 50% to the Apsara Authority and 50% for the Sokha Hotel Group.
And any amount above the $US3 million will be split as follow: 15% deposited in Angkor Development Fund and 85% will go to the Apsara Authority. In turn, this 85% of revenue will be split 80% to Apsara Authority and 20% to the Sokha Hotel Group. //End//
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Read related story:http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2008/03/prime-minister-hun-sen-clarifies-about.html