The Tatay River Hydropower Dam

Project Structure

CHMC created the joint venture Beijing Sanlian International Investment Co., Ltd. along with two other Chinese companies: the Northwest Hydroelectric Investigation Design and Research Institute of China Hydropower Engineering Consulting Group Co (CHECC), and CHINT Company Limited. CHMC is the majority shareholder at approximately 90%, while CHINT Group announced its investment in the Tatay Hydropower Project at 10% of the project’s costs and CHECC is another minority shareholder. CHMC is a subsidiary of SINOMACH while CHECC is a subsidiary of China Electric Power Construction Group Co., Ltd. (CEPCA). Cambodia Tatay Hydropower Ltd. was subsequently established as sole recipient of Beijing Sanlian International Investment Co., Ltd. investments. Cambodia Tatay Hydropower Ltd. contracted China Gezhouba Group Corporation–in the firm’s own words, a “core member,” of the state-owned enterprise China Energy Engineering Group–to perform the bulk of the construction.

Issues

The official environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the Tatay project is not readily available to the public and all information here is summarized from a draft EIA published on Open Development Cambodia in 2010. The draft describes the project will flood 2949 hectares permanently and 182 hectares temporarily. The flooding would affect the wildlife as well as the livelihood of locals who depend on the forest and its resources to make a living. The EIA further mentioned concerns of diminished air and water quality both during construction and some years after project completion.

In addition to the environmental impacts of the dam, there are further externalities impacting the supporting infrastructure. Environmental NGOs raised the question as to whether such construction would catalyze similar patterns previously observed, i.e., the establishment of roads to support development projects that open up easy access to forests for illegal loggers and poachers, furthering the negative environmental impacts of the Tatay project.

There are also difficulties with transparency as there is still no public disclosure of the procurement bidding, the feasibility study, the budget, or the EIA. The relative absence of transparency at the time of project planning and operationalization continues to present challenges for stakeholders and development partners in determining the impacts of the project. It is unclear whether the project budget has changed from earlier projections or whether those projections were simply erroneous when initially prepared, but discrepancies and inconsistencies certainly do exist across the budgetary documents. Confusion also exists around the project timeline as it is unclear whether the project experienced delays or took longer than expected and the implications thereof on the overall project budget.