>> Vinamit’s odor picked up by police
Vinamit’s leaders are asking the public to withold judgement about the company until necessary test results of water samples are conclusive.
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| Nguyen Lam Vien , General Director of Vinamit |
The company has been accused polluting the environment.
On August 20, Vinamit’s plant in Binh Duong Province was caught discharging waste-water into the water drainage pipe system of Becamex Company without permission.
Below is an interview between DTiNews and Nguyen Lam Vien, General Director of Vinamit regarding his company’s suspected environmental violations:
Vien said, “It’s fair for us to judge whether or not we contaminated the environment with the test results of the water samples. We have decided to suspend our production not because we have admitted to any wrongdoing but because we want to protect our image among consumers.”
Did the environmental police request that the plant be shut down?
No, they did not. It’s necessary to wait for a conclusion from functional authorities. However, people now believe that my plant polluted the environment so we need to suspend our production.
We do not want our consumers to consider us an immoral enterprise. We made the right decision by suspending our production in Binh Duong Province because we want to let people know that Vinamit appreciates community values.
But it seems your plant is still operating?
Only the sales department is working because our partners asked us to provide them with more goods when we informed them about our suspension. Our remaining goods are enough to supply them for about another month.
Is Vinamit wrong for releasing waste-water into the environment?
If we are wrong, we are willing to face the penalty. However, recently, environmental police punished us for connecting our waste-water releasing pipe system with the water drainage pipe system of Becamex without any permission. We were not fined for polluting the environment because the water sample test results have not yet come back. We need to wait and see whether or not Vinamit discharged toxic waste-water into the environment.
Our treated waste-water and rain water was often released into empty land where it evaporated and the soil absorbed it. However, during days of heavy rain, the empty land could not absorb all of the released water; thus we were forced to discharge it into the water drainage pipe of Becamex.
The agreement on sharing the water drainage system with Becamex and my company has not been made until now and that’s why we were fined.
In fact, without their water drainage system, we had to let our waste water spill over the road because there is no waste-water drainage system around our plant except Becamex’s.
So is the only problem of Vinamit now that your company has not reached an agreement on sharing the water drainage system with Becamex?
Yes. We need to finalise a deal with Becamex.
Does the production suspension affect your employees?
Our plant has 500 employees. We still give enough wages for all of them as usual. It’s not their fault. However, farmers will be victims because we have to stop buying their agricultural products. We often buy about 150 tonnes of their agricultural products per day. Now, they have to manage to sell it to other buyers at a cheaper price.
How long will you suspend your production in Binh Duong Province?
Work will resume when we make the agreement with Becamex. If we cannot finalise the deal with them, we need to plan and operate another plant in different province.
Becamex’s leaders have already agreed with our overall proposal. Next week, we will have a meeting with the People’s Committee of Binh Duong Province about this issue. I believe the local authorities will work with an enterprise like us.
Thank you!
