Only $1.4 million of the original $40 million deal with Cambodia has been spent on refugees sent from the island nation of Nauru to Phnom Penh, Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said in a radio interview yesterday morning with a local station.
Most of the funds for the deal were to be spent on the National Election Committee (NEC) and other election assistance, landmine clearance and agricultural production, he said.
A total of $11 million was planned for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to help them settle refugees and cover the costs for housing, healthcare and employment.
Now that all but two of the refugees have left Cambodia and returned to their home countries, the controversial deal is in jeopardy of falling apart.
Australian ministers have slammed the deal as a waste of money, with the Australian opposition party’s immigration spokesman Richard Marles saying earlier this week: “The inability of this government to secure a meaningful resettlement arrangement with a credible third country is a serious failure.”
The revelation is another black eye for the much-maligned deal signed early in 2015. Australia hailed it as a solution to its long-standing issue with refugees. They have refused to accept any refugees arriving by boat, instead detaining them in a facility run partially by IOM on Nauru.
The facilities have also been criticized by human rights advocates, with repeated cases of alleged abuse, rape and malnourishment happening to those detained there, according to an Australian Immigration Ministry report.
Since five refugees arrived in Phnom Penh in June and July last year, two Iranians and one Rohingya from Myanmar have returned to their home countries, citing difficulties with the language and seclusion as the reason behind their decision to leave. Now, only one Iranian and one Rohingya remain in Cambodia.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy spoke harshly about the deal last August, telling an Australian media outlet that Cambodia should not be a “dumping site for refugees.”
Cambodia was widely criticized for accepting the deal, with many NGOs and civil society organizations here claiming that Cambodia’s own record with human rights makes it ill-suited to take on the task of caring for refugees.
Kerm Sarin, a spokesman for the General Department of Immigration at the Ministry of Interior, said neither he nor any other government official knew the exact amount Australia spent on the refugees.
The expenses for the refugees are handled by the Australian government and IOM, with Cambodia only involved in providing legal documents for them, he said.
“The resettlement in any country is dependent on the favor of the refugee. If they want to live in Cambodia, we will organize the legal documents or other paperwork for them and facilitate their integration into society,” he said. “Any expense in relation to the resettlement and training courses does not involve Cambodia.”
Mr. Sarin said the refugees who resettled in Cambodia have every right to return home and their decision will not affect the deal.
“Whether they want to live here or go back has no effect on the agreement. They are volunteering to go back to their countries,” he added.
But the Australian architects of the deal have hailed it as a success, saying that since detaining most refugees on Nauru and only offering them the chance to reside in Cambodia, they have seen a decrease in the number of boats carrying migrants trying to make it to their shores.
“The fact that we’ve had no drownings at sea and no successful boat arrivals I think is a pretty good outcome,” Mr. Dutton said in his interview yesterday.