Sand dredging licences secretly soaring

[geovalin]

Ayanna Runcie

Despite the government’s vow to be more transparent with regulations and the issuing of sand-dredging licences, the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) has granted nearly 70 new such licences without holding public auctions or requiring companies to disclose environmental impact assessments (EIA) results to the public, according to data from the ministry.

As part of the reforms following a sand-dredging clampdown in March of last year, when the MME announced that it would rein in the sector, numerous sand-dredging licences have continued to be issued.

While the most transparent public auction was held last June to issue four licences for dredging the Mekong and Tonle Bassac rivers, since then a total of 49 licences were awarded by the end of 2015 and 20 more during the first quarter of 2016 – bringing the nationwide total to 84, said Dith Tina, secretary of state at the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

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