“Fresh sand controversy”, 2 Jan 2017

Cambodia exported more than 108,000 tonnes of sand to India in 36 separate shipments between 2013 and 2015, according to Indian customs data…contradicting Cambodian customs data that show no sand being sent there at all.

The latest data discrepancy come as the Ministry of Mines has struggled to explain why Singapore recorded sand imports of almost 70 million tonnes from Cambodia between 2007 and 2015 for which Cambodia has no record.

The large-scale disparities have led to concerns from environmentalists that some people are growing wealthy by illegally exporting Cambodian sand, while destroying aquatic habitats and causing severe erosion of land that has already led to houses collapsing…

Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, a founder of the Mother Nature group who was deported from Cambodia in 2015 because of his activism, said…that he believed the discrepancies in Singaporean and Indian data suggested only one thing.

“To me these figures reveal a shocking truth: people in positions of power in the government have been for years involved in the smuggling of Cambodian sand to countries like India, through the forgery of documents, corruption, and abuse of power,” he said…