ABC | 28 April 2014
ANZ faces accusations it financed business that forced villagers from land
One of Australia's big banks is facing scrutiny it financed a Cambodian sugar business
responsible for forcing almost 500 families off their land, as the conduct of Australia's 'big four' in developing countries is analysed.
Sam Clark
Source: 7.30 | Duration: 10min 58sec
VIDEO: ANZ faces accusations it financed business that forced villagers from land (7.30)
(See transcript at bottom)
ABC | 28 April 2014
Cambodian woman run over by harvester at ANZ-linked Phnom Penh Sugar development
Nineteen-year-old Tha Seng Hak cannot get the images of her mother's gruesome death out of her head.
"When I close my eyes, I see all these images of what happened to her," she said, standing beside a sugar cane field in Kampong Speu, a two-hour drive west of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
"Her arm and leg were detached."
Just six weeks ago, Ms Hak was working with her mother in the sugar can fields, which are owned by Phnom Penh Sugar.
The company is owned by ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat, who, with the help of a loan from ANZ Bank, has transformed this area into the largest sugar operation in Cambodia.
But the development has come at a cost to the local people, and none have paid a heavier price than Ms Hak's family.
After being forced to leave the land they occupied to make way for the company's sugar plantation, Ms Hak says her mother, Hol Mom, was left with no option but to accept a job working in the fields for Phnom Penh Sugar.
Six weeks ago, with her daughter just metres away, Ms Mom was run over and killed by a sugar harvester while she slept in the fields during a work stoppage.
"When they reversed a little bit the driver thought something was stuck in the machine, and when one of them tried to look inside the machine he saw arms and legs stuck inside it," she said.
She says she then told her supervisor to conduct a head count and went looking for her mother.
"I ran back and saw my mother's scarf and then I fell down. I saw that my mother's arm and leg was inside the machine," she said.
"My mother was a big woman when these things happened to her, her whole body was in small plastic bags, not even 20 kilograms."
Company had no policies for employee health and safety
Ms Hak recalls the scenes, standing on the edge of the cane field where her mother died.
She points to a distant tree, close to where her mother went to sleep, perhaps in search of some shade as respite from the baking Cambodian sun.
The general manager of Phnom Penh Sugar, Seng Nhak, admitted to the ABC that his company did not have a work health and safety policy for its employees.
But such a policy was one of the key recommendations of a 2010 audit of the project commissioned by ANZ before it decided to help fund the company's operation.
Mr Seng told the ABC that implementing the recommendations in the 2010 report was a condition of ANZ's loan.
The chairman of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights says that ANZ should have investigated previous allegations that senator Phat had been involved in land grabs in the past.
"He's involved in many other land grabs, many other land deals, many other questionable deals ... these are quite publicly known information," Virak Ou said.
Senator Phat involved with another controversial sugar project
In 2006, another company owned by senator Phat was involved in a sugar project in Koh Kong province that allegedly saw hundreds of families dispossessed of their land.
Mother of nine Sum Tea was one of them.
"Ly Yong Phat is not a good person. He took all my land and did not give me any money, so I do not have any business now," she said.
Ms Sum says she was forced to send her son, Ly, far from home to find a job and provide food for his brothers and sisters after the majority of her land was taken in the sugar deal.
Last year, Ly ended up in neighbouring Kampong Speu province working in Phnom Penh Sugar's cane fields.
On just his fifth day of work he was run over and killed by a harvester while sleeping in the fields.
"I was so upset when I heard, I couldn't breathe I felt like I was going to die myself," Ms Sum said.
"Other children also work but they are still alive. My son is dead."
ANZ says it is continuing to work with Phnom Penh Sugar and the local community to seek a resolution to the land dispute.
The bank said it has exited funding relationships in the past when its customers have not met the bank's standards.
In a statement, the bank said that it is "continuing to actively and closely review the way Phnom Penh Sugar is addressing its social and environmental obligations."
"ANZ will always look to work with our customers to meet internationally accepted standards of good practice and support and encourage them to engage with local communities, governments or other interest groups, such as NGOs," the statement said.
----
Transcript
SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: Rapidly-expanding countries in our region are a tantalising prospect for Australia's banks, but an Oxfam report published today accuses Australia's big four banks of financing companies which have taken land from poor villagers. ANZ is under scrutiny for financing a Cambodian sugar business, responsible for almost 500 families being forced from their land. Sam Clark travelled to Cambodia for 7.30 and filed this report.
SAM CLARK, REPORTER: Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia is the country's busiest port. The agricultural goods exported from here are helping Cambodia's economy grow over seven per cent a year.
At the country's largest sugar mill, Phnom Penh Sugar, managing director Seng Nhak oversees the loading of the latest order bound for the domestic market.
SENG NHAK, MD, PHNOM PENH SUGAR: I'm very happy to see that the sugar is produced by our own people in Cambodia here.
SAM CLARK: Cambodia's burgeoning sugar industry has reaped huge profits for families like Seng Nhak's, but it has come at a cost to this fragile nation. And one of Australia's leading banks has been drawn into the controversy. Thousands of families have lost their homes and some have even lost their lives.
EANG VUTHY, DIRECTOR, EQUITABLE CAMBODIA: We see thousand of family seriously impacted by this business. Their lives really facing a lot of difficulties.
SAM CLARK: Two hours' drive from the capital, Phnom Penh Sugar has developed a sprawling sugar plantation in Kampong Speu, one of Cambodia's poorest provinces. For centuries, people here survived by working small plots of land, growing just enough food to feed their families. But in 2010, 500 families had their land forcibly purchased to make way for the Phnom Penh Sugar development.
CHUN CHUN, FARMER (voiceover translation): I don't have farmland anymore. I only have a small amount of crops now. That is why I now work for the company. I'm paid only $3.50 a day, up to $4.
SAM CLARK: The company's managing director says the jobs offered to farmers like Chun are helping to revitalise this area.
SENG NHAK: It brings a lot of basic infrastructure development to this area and also it brings the job opportunity to the people here - 4,000 people around here.
SAM CLARK: The mastermind behind this $220 million operation is Seng Nhak's father-in-law. Senator Ly Yong Phat is a leading Cambodian political and business figure and one of Cambodia's richest men. He's a member of the ruling party and a close confidant of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
VIRAK OU, CHAIRMAN, CAMBODIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: He's involved in many other land grabs, many other land deals, many other questionable deals. These are quite publicly-known information.
SAM CLARK: Senator Phat was named in a leaked US State Department cable as one of Cambodia's top 10 tycoons whose relationship with the Government reinforces a culture of impunity and limits progress on reforms such as Hun Sen's self-declared war on corruption. The cable refers to Senator Phat as "The King of Koh Kong" because of its prominence in his home province near the Thai border.
In 2006, one of the senator's companies was granted 15,000 hectares of land here in Koh Kong to set up another sugar plantation and mill. Hundreds of families were forcibly removed from their land. One of those was Sum Tea's.
SUM TEA (voiceover translation): Ly Yong Phat is not a good person. He took all my land and didn't give me any money, so I cannot do any business now.
SAM CLARK: The US State Department cable described how Senator Phat took over the villagers' land.
US STATE DEPARTMENT CABLE (male voiceover): "After receiving land concessions that exceed the legal limit of 10,000 hectares from the Government in 2006, Ly Yong Phat used his influence to send armed military police forces to grab land from villagers and to clear their lands by burning down their crops and trees."
SAM CLARK: In 2009 when Senator Phat was setting up his next sugar venture, he turned to the ANZ Bank.
ANZ has been in Cambodia since 2004 when it established a joint venture with Cambodia's Royal Group of companies. The Royal Group is owned by another of the top 10 tycoons, Kith Meng, referred to in the State Department cable as "Mr Rough Stuff". A businessman with interests in hotels, communications and insurance, he's described as a ruthless operator, notorious, it's alleged, for using his bodyguards to coerce others into brokering deals.
ANZ had good reason to be wary of its new business partners, including Phnom Penh Sugar and Senator Phat.
To address its concerns about doing business with Senator Phat here in Kampong Speu, ANZ commissioned this report by a Bangkok-based environmental consultants IEM to investigate the impact the deal would have on the local residents. The report concluded that because the project involved the compulsory relocation of people, Phnom Penh Sugar should put in place a series of measures to safeguard their future. The company was to appoint an external expert to monitor the transition, set up a formal grievance mechanism so that locals could complain to it and put in place a comprehensive work health and safety policy to train and protect its workers.
Three and a half years on, villagers here say most of the recommendations made in the bank-commissioned audit have been ignored by Phnom Penh Sugar.
MON (voiceover translation): They took all my farm lands. I haven't had enough to eat for about four years.
SAM CLARK: In mid-2010, these families were made to leave their land to make way for Phnom Penh Sugar.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): I feel so sad that we used to live there. Then they told us to move to another place. This place, we don't have enough land, you see? We used to have many hectares of land. Now we live in a small plot of land with two families.
SAM CLARK: After losing their land, Hak went to work with her mother in the fields for Phnom Penh Sugar, but says they received no safety training.
Just six weeks ago, tragedy struck when Hak's mother was run over by a harvester while she was resting in the fields.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): When the machine was stopped, I realised that my mother was in the machine. Her foot and leg has been separated. I couldn't recognise her body. When I took the body for ceremony, it was not her complete body. When the machine was taken apart, they found her leg.
SAM CLARK: Following her mother's death, Hak's family says Phnom Penh Sugar gave them $1,300 in compensation. They were made to sign a document which prohibits the family from taking further legal action against the company. Hak says the money wasn't enough to allow the family to mourn their mother for 100 days, as required by their Buddhist faith. Her mother's gruesome death continues to haunt her.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): On the day my mother passed away, I couldn't sleep for two nights, because when I closed my eyes, I saw all those images.
SAM CLARK: Hak's mother isn't the only worker to have died on the plantation. In December, Sum Tea's son was run over and killed by a harvester. He'd gone to work for Phnom Penh Sugar after his family had also lost their land.
SUM TEA (voiceover translation): Because I'm very poor, I let him go to work to feed the family. ... I was so upset, when I heard, I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to die myself. Other children also work, but they are still alive. My son is dead.
SAM CLARK: Phnom Penh Sugar's managing director accepts the company has failed to implement recommended health and safety procedures.
Did your company undertake to implement those recommendations, though, made in the audit? Did you undertake to ANZ that you would do that?
SENG NHAK: Ah, yes, we do and ANZ is making a very strict policy for them that we have to follow with the recommendation. And as you can see from the second report, we have complete 40 per cent of the recommendation.
SAM CLARK: Did ANZ's loan require you to meet the conditions of that assessment?
SENG NHAK: Yes.
SAM CLARK: A 2013 audit found that Phnom Penh Sugar had failed to implement the health and safety program recommended to it three years earlier.
A local activist, Eang Vuthy, says ANZ should ensure that families are more fairly compensated.
EANG VUTHY: The damage has been done. But it is still, um - you know, it's not too late to fix the issue if you can work with the company to return the land back to the people.
HELEN SZOKE, CEO, OXFAM: Where banks such as the ANZ hold themselves up to be a leader, if you like, around ethical and sustainable investment, then those principles should impact on every investment decision that they make.
SAM CLARK: ANZ says it's continuing to closely review the way Phnom Penh Sugar is addressing its environmental and social obligations. But that's little consolation for the families who continue to mourn the loss of their loved ones.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): When I miss her, I take a picture with me to work and I look at her photo. Sometimes, when I see my mother's picture, it makes me cry.
SAM CLARK: Sam Clark reporting from Cambodia. ANZ declined our request for an interview.
You can see their statement below:
ANZ is a lender to Phnom Penh Sugar through a facility to part fund establishment of a new sugar refinery.
While the Equator Principles do not apply in this case because it is not project finance, ANZ will always look to work with our customers to meet internationally accepted standards of good practice and support and encourage them to engage with local communities, Governments or other interest groups such as NGOs.
ANZ has exited customer relationships in the past in circumstances where the customer is unwilling to work collaboratively with ANZ towards meeting our standards, taking into account ANZ's legal position regarding its contractual arrangements with the customer.
ANZ has been involved in an extensive dialogue here in Australia and in Cambodia to hear the concerns of NGOs including Inclusive Development and Oxfam, as well as supporting our customer meeting with NGOs and members of the community directly.
ANZ is continuing to actively and closely review the way PPS is addressing its social and environmental obligations.
You also raised a number of questions about the Royal Group and its Chairman Kith Meng.
ANZ's joint venture joint-venture with the Royal Group dates back to 2004 when ANZ Royal Bank Cambodia was established. Royal Group own 45 per cent of ANZ Royal Bank (ANZ 55 per cent).
Since ANZ's CEO Mike Smith was appointed in 2007, ANZ's preference in relation to its partnerships, including in Cambodia, is to achieve full (100 per cent) ownership where there are not local regulatory constraints.
You can access a transcript of Mr Smith talking specifically about the partnership on Sky Business here.
You are probably aware that Mr Meng is a former Australian resident and he is best placed to respond to any views third parties might have about him.
ANZ faces accusations it financed business that forced villagers from land
One of Australia's big banks is facing scrutiny it financed a Cambodian sugar business
Sam Clark
Source: 7.30 | Duration: 10min 58sec
VIDEO: ANZ faces accusations it financed business that forced villagers from land (7.30)
(See transcript at bottom)
ABC | 28 April 2014
Cambodian woman run over by harvester at ANZ-linked Phnom Penh Sugar development
Nineteen-year-old Tha Seng Hak cannot get the images of her mother's gruesome death out of her head.
"When I close my eyes, I see all these images of what happened to her," she said, standing beside a sugar cane field in Kampong Speu, a two-hour drive west of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
"Her arm and leg were detached."
Just six weeks ago, Ms Hak was working with her mother in the sugar can fields, which are owned by Phnom Penh Sugar.
The company is owned by ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat, who, with the help of a loan from ANZ Bank, has transformed this area into the largest sugar operation in Cambodia.
But the development has come at a cost to the local people, and none have paid a heavier price than Ms Hak's family.
After being forced to leave the land they occupied to make way for the company's sugar plantation, Ms Hak says her mother, Hol Mom, was left with no option but to accept a job working in the fields for Phnom Penh Sugar.
Six weeks ago, with her daughter just metres away, Ms Mom was run over and killed by a sugar harvester while she slept in the fields during a work stoppage.
"When they reversed a little bit the driver thought something was stuck in the machine, and when one of them tried to look inside the machine he saw arms and legs stuck inside it," she said.
She says she then told her supervisor to conduct a head count and went looking for her mother.
"I ran back and saw my mother's scarf and then I fell down. I saw that my mother's arm and leg was inside the machine," she said.
"My mother was a big woman when these things happened to her, her whole body was in small plastic bags, not even 20 kilograms."
Company had no policies for employee health and safety
Ms Hak recalls the scenes, standing on the edge of the cane field where her mother died.
She points to a distant tree, close to where her mother went to sleep, perhaps in search of some shade as respite from the baking Cambodian sun.
The general manager of Phnom Penh Sugar, Seng Nhak, admitted to the ABC that his company did not have a work health and safety policy for its employees.
But such a policy was one of the key recommendations of a 2010 audit of the project commissioned by ANZ before it decided to help fund the company's operation.
Mr Seng told the ABC that implementing the recommendations in the 2010 report was a condition of ANZ's loan.
The chairman of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights says that ANZ should have investigated previous allegations that senator Phat had been involved in land grabs in the past.
"He's involved in many other land grabs, many other land deals, many other questionable deals ... these are quite publicly known information," Virak Ou said.
Senator Phat involved with another controversial sugar project
In 2006, another company owned by senator Phat was involved in a sugar project in Koh Kong province that allegedly saw hundreds of families dispossessed of their land.
Mother of nine Sum Tea was one of them.
Sum Tea holds a photo of her son, Ly, who was killed in December 2013 while working for Phnom Penh Sugar. (Photo: ABC News/Sam Clark)
"Ly Yong Phat is not a good person. He took all my land and did not give me any money, so I do not have any business now," she said.
Ms Sum says she was forced to send her son, Ly, far from home to find a job and provide food for his brothers and sisters after the majority of her land was taken in the sugar deal.
Last year, Ly ended up in neighbouring Kampong Speu province working in Phnom Penh Sugar's cane fields.
On just his fifth day of work he was run over and killed by a harvester while sleeping in the fields.
"I was so upset when I heard, I couldn't breathe I felt like I was going to die myself," Ms Sum said.
"Other children also work but they are still alive. My son is dead."
ANZ says it is continuing to work with Phnom Penh Sugar and the local community to seek a resolution to the land dispute.
The bank said it has exited funding relationships in the past when its customers have not met the bank's standards.
In a statement, the bank said that it is "continuing to actively and closely review the way Phnom Penh Sugar is addressing its social and environmental obligations."
"ANZ will always look to work with our customers to meet internationally accepted standards of good practice and support and encourage them to engage with local communities, governments or other interest groups, such as NGOs," the statement said.
----
Transcript
SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: Rapidly-expanding countries in our region are a tantalising prospect for Australia's banks, but an Oxfam report published today accuses Australia's big four banks of financing companies which have taken land from poor villagers. ANZ is under scrutiny for financing a Cambodian sugar business, responsible for almost 500 families being forced from their land. Sam Clark travelled to Cambodia for 7.30 and filed this report.
SAM CLARK, REPORTER: Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia is the country's busiest port. The agricultural goods exported from here are helping Cambodia's economy grow over seven per cent a year.
At the country's largest sugar mill, Phnom Penh Sugar, managing director Seng Nhak oversees the loading of the latest order bound for the domestic market.
SENG NHAK, MD, PHNOM PENH SUGAR: I'm very happy to see that the sugar is produced by our own people in Cambodia here.
SAM CLARK: Cambodia's burgeoning sugar industry has reaped huge profits for families like Seng Nhak's, but it has come at a cost to this fragile nation. And one of Australia's leading banks has been drawn into the controversy. Thousands of families have lost their homes and some have even lost their lives.
EANG VUTHY, DIRECTOR, EQUITABLE CAMBODIA: We see thousand of family seriously impacted by this business. Their lives really facing a lot of difficulties.
SAM CLARK: Two hours' drive from the capital, Phnom Penh Sugar has developed a sprawling sugar plantation in Kampong Speu, one of Cambodia's poorest provinces. For centuries, people here survived by working small plots of land, growing just enough food to feed their families. But in 2010, 500 families had their land forcibly purchased to make way for the Phnom Penh Sugar development.
CHUN CHUN, FARMER (voiceover translation): I don't have farmland anymore. I only have a small amount of crops now. That is why I now work for the company. I'm paid only $3.50 a day, up to $4.
SAM CLARK: The company's managing director says the jobs offered to farmers like Chun are helping to revitalise this area.
SENG NHAK: It brings a lot of basic infrastructure development to this area and also it brings the job opportunity to the people here - 4,000 people around here.
SAM CLARK: The mastermind behind this $220 million operation is Seng Nhak's father-in-law. Senator Ly Yong Phat is a leading Cambodian political and business figure and one of Cambodia's richest men. He's a member of the ruling party and a close confidant of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
VIRAK OU, CHAIRMAN, CAMBODIAN CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: He's involved in many other land grabs, many other land deals, many other questionable deals. These are quite publicly-known information.
SAM CLARK: Senator Phat was named in a leaked US State Department cable as one of Cambodia's top 10 tycoons whose relationship with the Government reinforces a culture of impunity and limits progress on reforms such as Hun Sen's self-declared war on corruption. The cable refers to Senator Phat as "The King of Koh Kong" because of its prominence in his home province near the Thai border.
In 2006, one of the senator's companies was granted 15,000 hectares of land here in Koh Kong to set up another sugar plantation and mill. Hundreds of families were forcibly removed from their land. One of those was Sum Tea's.
SUM TEA (voiceover translation): Ly Yong Phat is not a good person. He took all my land and didn't give me any money, so I cannot do any business now.
SAM CLARK: The US State Department cable described how Senator Phat took over the villagers' land.
US STATE DEPARTMENT CABLE (male voiceover): "After receiving land concessions that exceed the legal limit of 10,000 hectares from the Government in 2006, Ly Yong Phat used his influence to send armed military police forces to grab land from villagers and to clear their lands by burning down their crops and trees."
SAM CLARK: In 2009 when Senator Phat was setting up his next sugar venture, he turned to the ANZ Bank.
ANZ has been in Cambodia since 2004 when it established a joint venture with Cambodia's Royal Group of companies. The Royal Group is owned by another of the top 10 tycoons, Kith Meng, referred to in the State Department cable as "Mr Rough Stuff". A businessman with interests in hotels, communications and insurance, he's described as a ruthless operator, notorious, it's alleged, for using his bodyguards to coerce others into brokering deals.
ANZ had good reason to be wary of its new business partners, including Phnom Penh Sugar and Senator Phat.
To address its concerns about doing business with Senator Phat here in Kampong Speu, ANZ commissioned this report by a Bangkok-based environmental consultants IEM to investigate the impact the deal would have on the local residents. The report concluded that because the project involved the compulsory relocation of people, Phnom Penh Sugar should put in place a series of measures to safeguard their future. The company was to appoint an external expert to monitor the transition, set up a formal grievance mechanism so that locals could complain to it and put in place a comprehensive work health and safety policy to train and protect its workers.
Three and a half years on, villagers here say most of the recommendations made in the bank-commissioned audit have been ignored by Phnom Penh Sugar.
MON (voiceover translation): They took all my farm lands. I haven't had enough to eat for about four years.
SAM CLARK: In mid-2010, these families were made to leave their land to make way for Phnom Penh Sugar.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): I feel so sad that we used to live there. Then they told us to move to another place. This place, we don't have enough land, you see? We used to have many hectares of land. Now we live in a small plot of land with two families.
SAM CLARK: After losing their land, Hak went to work with her mother in the fields for Phnom Penh Sugar, but says they received no safety training.
Just six weeks ago, tragedy struck when Hak's mother was run over by a harvester while she was resting in the fields.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): When the machine was stopped, I realised that my mother was in the machine. Her foot and leg has been separated. I couldn't recognise her body. When I took the body for ceremony, it was not her complete body. When the machine was taken apart, they found her leg.
SAM CLARK: Following her mother's death, Hak's family says Phnom Penh Sugar gave them $1,300 in compensation. They were made to sign a document which prohibits the family from taking further legal action against the company. Hak says the money wasn't enough to allow the family to mourn their mother for 100 days, as required by their Buddhist faith. Her mother's gruesome death continues to haunt her.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): On the day my mother passed away, I couldn't sleep for two nights, because when I closed my eyes, I saw all those images.
SAM CLARK: Hak's mother isn't the only worker to have died on the plantation. In December, Sum Tea's son was run over and killed by a harvester. He'd gone to work for Phnom Penh Sugar after his family had also lost their land.
SUM TEA (voiceover translation): Because I'm very poor, I let him go to work to feed the family. ... I was so upset, when I heard, I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to die myself. Other children also work, but they are still alive. My son is dead.
SAM CLARK: Phnom Penh Sugar's managing director accepts the company has failed to implement recommended health and safety procedures.
Did your company undertake to implement those recommendations, though, made in the audit? Did you undertake to ANZ that you would do that?
SENG NHAK: Ah, yes, we do and ANZ is making a very strict policy for them that we have to follow with the recommendation. And as you can see from the second report, we have complete 40 per cent of the recommendation.
SAM CLARK: Did ANZ's loan require you to meet the conditions of that assessment?
SENG NHAK: Yes.
SAM CLARK: A 2013 audit found that Phnom Penh Sugar had failed to implement the health and safety program recommended to it three years earlier.
A local activist, Eang Vuthy, says ANZ should ensure that families are more fairly compensated.
EANG VUTHY: The damage has been done. But it is still, um - you know, it's not too late to fix the issue if you can work with the company to return the land back to the people.
HELEN SZOKE, CEO, OXFAM: Where banks such as the ANZ hold themselves up to be a leader, if you like, around ethical and sustainable investment, then those principles should impact on every investment decision that they make.
SAM CLARK: ANZ says it's continuing to closely review the way Phnom Penh Sugar is addressing its environmental and social obligations. But that's little consolation for the families who continue to mourn the loss of their loved ones.
THA SENG HAK (voiceover translation): When I miss her, I take a picture with me to work and I look at her photo. Sometimes, when I see my mother's picture, it makes me cry.
SAM CLARK: Sam Clark reporting from Cambodia. ANZ declined our request for an interview.
You can see their statement below:
ANZ is a lender to Phnom Penh Sugar through a facility to part fund establishment of a new sugar refinery.
While the Equator Principles do not apply in this case because it is not project finance, ANZ will always look to work with our customers to meet internationally accepted standards of good practice and support and encourage them to engage with local communities, Governments or other interest groups such as NGOs.
ANZ has exited customer relationships in the past in circumstances where the customer is unwilling to work collaboratively with ANZ towards meeting our standards, taking into account ANZ's legal position regarding its contractual arrangements with the customer.
ANZ has been involved in an extensive dialogue here in Australia and in Cambodia to hear the concerns of NGOs including Inclusive Development and Oxfam, as well as supporting our customer meeting with NGOs and members of the community directly.
ANZ is continuing to actively and closely review the way PPS is addressing its social and environmental obligations.
You also raised a number of questions about the Royal Group and its Chairman Kith Meng.
ANZ's joint venture joint-venture with the Royal Group dates back to 2004 when ANZ Royal Bank Cambodia was established. Royal Group own 45 per cent of ANZ Royal Bank (ANZ 55 per cent).
Since ANZ's CEO Mike Smith was appointed in 2007, ANZ's preference in relation to its partnerships, including in Cambodia, is to achieve full (100 per cent) ownership where there are not local regulatory constraints.
You can access a transcript of Mr Smith talking specifically about the partnership on Sky Business here.
You are probably aware that Mr Meng is a former Australian resident and he is best placed to respond to any views third parties might have about him.
