Four officials have been charged and arrested for deliberately acting against State regulations on economic management.
>> Details emerge surrounding Vinashin’s latest struggles
>> More problems for Vinashin as PM suspends new general director
>> Government determined to punish and save Vinashin
>> Vinashin\'s former leader arrested for deliberate violations
>> Vinashin chairman faces criminal investigation
>> Vietnam giant Vinashin to undergo Government review
 |
| The arrest warrants were announced on September 3. In this photo, police officers were leaving Tran Quang Vu’s house, located at 17T6 Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh Building, Hanoi, after making the arrest. |
The men have been accused of wrongdoing related to projects of buying the Hoa Sen high-speed ship, investing in building the Song Hong Thermo-electricity Plant and selling the mortgaged asset of Nam Trieu Shipbuilding Industry Company (NASICO), a subsidiary of state-run shipbuilding conglomerate Vinashin.
The arrest of the four officials was based on evidence gathered from the testimony of Pham Thanh Binh, former chairman and general director of Vinashin.
When Tran Quang Vu, former general executive director and member of Vinashin\'s board of directors, acted as deneral director of the NASICO, he and Binh deliberately bought the Bach Dang Giang, which was an old ship manufactured in 1973, then made plans to repair it, although the government did not grant them permission to buy the used ship.
Additionally, Vu mortgaged this old ship to borrow VND106 billion ($5.4 million) from the government’s capital source of international bonds managed by the Vinashin Shipbuilding Finance Company (VFC).
When the ship could not be used, Vu sold the remaining iron and steel taken from the ship without approval of Vinashin’s leaders and without informing the VFC. Furthermore, Vu did not return the money made from selling the steel and iron of the ship to the lender.
Eventually, the state’s mortgaged assets were lost. He violated Decision 36/2006/QD-BTC, issued on July 7, 2006, by the Ministry of Finance, causing seriously economic consequences.
When Tran Van Liem, another member of Vinashin\'s board of directors acted as general director of Vinashin Lines Container Company, he was assigned to manage the project of purchasing the Hoa Sen high-speed ship by Binh. However, this ship purchase project went against the direction of the Prime Minister.
Liem also violated regulated ship purchase processes by not conducting the bidding and signing the purchase contract before receiving the ship. Consequently, fixing the ship cost a lot of money and the ship did not bring good business results.
Nguyen Van Tuyen, former general director of Hoang Anh Shipbuilding Joint Stock Company and Nguyen Tuan Duong, former chairman of management board of Cuu Long Investment Joint Stock Company, former general director of Vinashin Cai Lan Steel Company of Vinashin, committed serious violations related to the project of the Song Hong Thermoelectricity Plant.
Binh, Tuyen and Duong deliberately invested in building the plant, although the government did not allow them to do this. Tuyen and Duong decided to buy two thermo-electricity plants of South Korea which were built in 1960 and stopped operating in 2004. These plants have transformers which are banned to be traded by both South Korea and Vietnam because they contain toxic chemicals. However, Tuyen and Duong had used faked documents enabling them to import this banned equipment to Vietnam.
The investigation into the shipbuilder\'s management is continuing.
