Trial begins in Vietnam state shipping giant corruption scam
Last updated: Thursday, December 12, 2013 16:35
Duong Chi Dung (C), former chairman of Vinalines, stands trial with his subordinates in Hanoi December 12 for allegedly importing an unusable floating deck after getting kickbacks / PHOTO COURTESY OF VIETNAM NEWS AGENCY
The trial of 10 people accused in a scam at the state-owned Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), most of them employees including an ex-chairman, causing a loss of over VND366 billion (US$17 million) to the treasury, began in Hanoi Thursday.
Duong Chi Dung, the former chairman, and the others are charged among other things with buying and repairing an unusable floating dock from abroad for $19.5 million in 2008, thus “deliberately violating state regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences.”
Dung and three other former executives also face charges of “embezzlement” for allegedly receiving $1.66 million in kickbacks in the deal.
Prosecutors from the Supreme People’s Procuracy said that in 2007, with Dung’s approval, Vinalines began to build a shipyard to repair ships in the south at a cost of more than VND3.8 trillion ($180.1 million).
It bought the dock from Russian-owned company Nakhodka through a Singapore brokerage called AP. Manufactured in Japan in 1965, it was heavily damaged and unusable, and originally offered for $2.3 million, but Vinalines ended up paying a whopping $9 million to buy it and another $10.5 million to repair it.
Tran Huu Chieu, then vice general director of Vinalines, and Tran Hai Son, then director of Vinalines Ship Repairing Ltd., Co, Mai Van Khang, an employee of Vinalines, and Le Van Duong, an employee of the Vietnam Register, visited Russia to inspect the dock
They were aware of its condition and real price, and reported them to Dung and Mai Van Phuc, then director general of Vinalines. But the two ordered them to write a report saying the dock was in good enough condition to buy.
Dung, Phuc, Chieu, and Son received $1.66 million from the foreign partners for the deal, according to the indictment.
Dung fled the country, allegedly with the help of his police officer brother when the scam first broke last year, but was apprehended in Cambodia and brought back to Vietnam.
Three customs officers in the central province of Khanh Hoa also face charges for "illegally" clearing the dock.
