Kratie town and provincial administrators met with representatives of families living alongside Kratie Town Hall yesterday after receiving a petition expressing villagers’ concern that the town hall planned to expand its premises onto their land.

Villager Mov Samnang said yesterday that families had lived in the area since 1979 and were given their current plots by the city when displaced by the town hall’s construction in 1997, but that recent moves to close a dividing path had rekindled worries that their untitled plots would be annexed.

“They want to grab all the land,” he said.

Hang Chandy, Kratie town governor, said that the land in question was listed as town property, and as such, “if we give it to them, we have to be responsible, so we must have a meeting and make a correct report to get the approval from the higher level”.