Another complaint of non payment.
Cambodian group: Angelina Jolie reneged on aid
10/30/2006
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The director of a conservation project in Cambodia funded by actress Angelina Jolie on Monday rejected a claim by a Cambodian non-profit group that she had stopped funding the program, explaining that she had only changed its structure and management.
The Cambodian government in 2003 approved a forest conservation and poverty alleviation program for remote areas of northwestern Cambodia, for which Jolie has promised $1.3 million over five years,
The group Cambodian Vision in Development, or CVD, had co-managed the project with the U.S. conservation group WildAid, but Jolie terminated the contract with both in December last year to set up an independent Cambodian organization to administer it, said Stephen Bognar, the new group's executive director.
The new group has taken the ongoing program's name, the "Maddox Jolie Project," named after Jolie's adopted Cambodian son.
Bognar said he was dismayed to hear that CVD director Mounh Sarath had earlier Monday accused the Hollywood actress of cheating Cambodia when she stopped providing money to his organization.
"I am accusing her of violating the agreement under which she agreed to provide funds to CVD," Mounh Sarath said. "The more than $1 million she has promised has never arrived."
He claimed Jolie cut off funding and ended cooperation with his group without explanation in December last year.
Because he had not received an explanation of the cutoff, he decided to go public with his complaint, he added.
In response, Bognar said that Jolie had exercised the right to terminate the contract with CVD and WildAid to establish the new, independent organization, which employs some former CVD staff members who had been working on the project. Bognar himself previously worked for WildAid.
"I'm saddened to hear that you have someone complaining that the money hasn't gone to him and his organization, rather than noting how it has gone directly to poverty alleviation projects," he said.
The money had been provided at the local level for such things as building schools, clinics and roads, paying teachers' salaries and bringing in agricultural advisers from Australia, he said.
Mounh Sarath complained that Jolie's action was unfair since he helped arrange for her to be honored for her assistance by being awarded Cambodian citizenship last year.
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061030/...t/people_jolie
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