PM says loans are to develop the country, not for his own interest

Prime Minister Hun Sen, in his speech during the inauguration of seven bridges located in Kratie and Prey Veng provinces yesterday, said that people criticised his government for being good in begging for money (from foreign countries).

“It’s true that I am begging for money but not for my own interests to complete building my own kitchen in my house. I am begging for money to build bridges, roads, canals, schools, hospitals and many other things for my Cambodian people’s interests.”

The Premier added that the five bridges in Kratie province and two bridges in Prey Veng province were built using loans from the government of Japan and the bridges help connect different parts of the country together.

For this reason, he pointed out that the progress in Cambodia cannot be done without assistance from various development partners, especially assistance from the government of Japan and its people through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

According to Mr Hun Sen, to date, Japan has provided concessional loans of more than $1.4 billion for the development of infrastructure in the country.

Japanese Ambassador Mikami Masahiro, in a speech during the inauguration ceremony, said that the seven bridges were built at different segments of National Road (NR) 11 to connect NR 1, 7 and 8, as well as different segments of the NR 73 to NR 7 to Kratie province.

“Although NR 11 and 73 are not big roads, we acknowledge that they are important roads for transportation in Prey Veng, Tboung Khmum and Kratie provinces. Moreover, the two roads cross a number of flooded areas and the seven bridges were built to replace the unsecured small bridges during flooding season,” said the Ambassador.

He added that the new bridges are larger and have a stronger foundation, resulting in more reliability and resilience to flooding.

“I heard that there were a lot of difficulties when building the bridges because flooding happened many times when the bridges were being built… I would like to thank the technical experts from the Public Works Ministry and the company winning the contract to build the bridges, the company winning the contract for inspection and JICA for successfully completing the construction of the bridges,” Ambassador Mikami said.

According to Public Works Minister Sun Chanthol, the total length of the seven bridges is 670 metres and a total of 3,424 metres of roads were also built to connect the bridges.

The construction of the seven bridges cost $35 million and was funded by the government of Japan through JICA in Cambodia.