A Brooklyn school group's gift of soccer balls and jerseys for an orphanage in Cambodia has been caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare of red tape and corruption

Push for gift delivery to Cambodian kids
By DENISE ROMANO and ELIZABETH HAYS
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Monday, December 10th 2007, 4:00 AM

A Brooklyn school group's gift of soccer balls and jerseys for an
orphanage in Cambodia has been caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare
of red tape and corruption.

For more than a year, the donated equipment intended to make life a
little happier for needy kids has been held up at a Cambodian port
while local officials demand hundreds of dollars in fees.

The parents group has tried desperately to get the gifts released,
including appealing to top Cambodian officials.

So far, they've gotten nowhere but they haven't given up - even though
the Cambodian ambassador to the U.S. concedes that port corruption is
a problem.

"I'm not frustrated yet," said Paula Shirk, a Brooklyn Heights mother
of two whose son Rudi, 6, was adopted as a baby from Cambodia and who
has raised thousands of dollars to help his birth family. "I'm
relentless."

The nonprofit group, called Brooklyn Bridge to Cambodia, has spent the
past year writing to top Cambodian officials, the U.S. ambassador to
Cambodia and even Phnom Penh's Cambodia Daily newspaper, urging that
the goods be freed.

All that has changed is the amount of money government officials are
demanding, which has gone up and down several times, for no apparent
reason.

When the shipment arrived in Phnom Penh in October 2006, Cambodian
Customs and Excise Department officials told the group it had to pay
$650 for the goods to be released, the parents said.

The price then rose to $1,560 before eventually coming back down to
$762 - more than twice what it cost to ship the goods in the first
place - a payment the group's local contacts told them was essentially
a bribe.

"It's very upsetting," said Craig Tooman, 45, of Boerum Hill, who
helped coordinate the group's fund-raiser at Public School 261. "You
try to teach your kids that they can make a difference."

Last spring, the group even launched a letter-writing campaign at PS
261 to pressure Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to step in.

"Please consider letting the soccer uniforms go to the children. You
will be doing a good deed," wrote Hannah Wing, 10.

Told of the situation, Cambodian Ambassador to the U.S. Sereywath Ek
said he would take the case to the country's minister of commerce.

"That happens sometimes in Cambodia that corrupt customs officers ask
for bribes, not just in Cambodia but all over Asia," Ek told the Daily
News. "I will try my best to help, but I cannot guarantee success."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also vowed to "leave no stone unturned"
until the donated goods reach the orphanage.

"The children of Brooklyn have sent a touching gift that will bring
some cheer and enjoyment to orphans in impoverished Cambodia," Schumer
said. "It is flat-out unacceptable that some corrupt Scrooges are
preventing this gift from arriving."

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