HCMC – Ministry of Public Security police have arrested four more former senior executives of the debt-laden shipbuilding giant Vinashin in a high-profile mismanagement case, according to a statement of the ministry.
The statement, which was posted on the Government site at about 3:30 p.m. last Friday, half an hour after Lt. Gen. Hoang Kong Tu, chief investigator of the ministry, called a news conference in Hanoi, says the four are accused of intentionally violating state regulations causing serious consequences.
Tran Quang Vu – who succeeded Pham Thanh Binh as general director of Vinashin shortly after the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Inspection proposed disciplining the then chairman and general director Binh over mismanagement two months ago – is among the four put into police custody last Friday for interrogation.
Late last month Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung signed a decision suspending Vu from the board of directors of the state-owned Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin) and asking the board to suspend him from the post of general director.
Tran Van Liem, another board member and chief controller who was also suspended by the Government leader, is the second to be arrested. The other two are Nguyen Van Tuyen, ex-general director of Hoang Anh Shipbuilding Industry Co. Ltd., and Nguyen Tuan Duong, ex-chairman of Cuu Long Investment Co.
The Ministry of Public Security statement says clues were uncovered during the probe into Pham Thanh Binh, who was arrested in Hanoi early last month over intentional violations of State rules on economic management which caused serious consequences and put Vinashin on the brink of bankruptcy. Vinashin’s total debt is VND86 trillion (about US$4.5 billion) while its combined assets are VND104 trillion.
The clues indicate the Prime Minister’s instructions had not been strictly implemented and violations of regulations on economic management causing serious consequences committed in connection with the purchase of a secondhand Italian-built ship locally known as Hoa Sen, the development of Song Hong power station and the sale of a mortgage asset by Nam Trieu Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (Nasico).
Tran Quang Vu, while serving as Nasico CEO, was aware that the Government did not allow the buying of used vessels but he and the then Vinashin chairman Binh approved a plan to convert Bach Dang Giang ship, which Vinashin had bought for steel, into a floating hotel.
Vu used the ship as collateral to borrow VND105 billion from Vinashin Finance Co. with funding coming from an international Government bond sale. But finding that the vessel could not be converted, Vu ordered its dismantlement for steel scrap without seeking consent from Vinashin leadership and reporting to Vinashin Finance.
The money gained from the sale of the steel scrap was not returned to Vinashin Finance, according to the ministry’s statement.
Tran Van Liem was assigned by Binh to oversee the project to buy Hoa Sen ship but he did not organize a competitive tender. Even worse, he signed the purchase contract before the project was formulated, and no technical inspection was done before delivery, the acts that went against a Government decree on ship buying.
Nguyen Van Tuyen of Hoang Anh Shipbuilding Industry Co. Ltd., and Nguyen Tuan Duong of Cuu Long Investment Co., together with Pham Thanh Binh, decided to build Song Hong power plant in Nam Dinh Province though they all knew the Government had not permitted it.
Tuyen and Duong bought equipment made in the 1960s from two old power stations in South Korea which stopped generation in 2004, including transformers containing a toxin which was banned from export by South Korea and prohibited from import by Vietnam.
The two even used falsified documentation in the name of the ministries of Natural Resources and Environment, and Industry and Trade to facilitate the import of the equipment.
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