Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction (Cambodia)


The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction is a government ministry of Cambodia. The Ministry is responsible for governing land use, urban planning, construction projects, and for the resolution of land use conflicts. The current Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction is Chea Sophara. and the Central offices of the ministry are located in Phnom Penh.
In 2012, the ministry provided licenses to 1,694 construction projects, down 20% from 2,125 projects in a year earlier, but at a higher value.

Land grabbing, illegal concessions and corruption

In the years of 2007-8 the Cambodian Government, was responsible for the sale of 45% of the total landmass in Cambodia to primarily foreign investors. Parts of these concessions are wildlife protections or national parks even, and the vast majority of the Economic Land Concessions have been issued in violation of Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law and its Subdecree on ELCs.
The landsales has been perceived by observers, to be the result of land grabbing and corruption within the judicial system, ministries and government bureaucracy of Cambodia. The landsales are potentially threatening more than 150,000 Cambodians directly with eviction and affecting more than 400,000. Already thousands of citizens had fallen victims of forced evictions, stirring serious unrest across the country.

Departments

The Ministry is currently organized into 6 administrative areas: