VietNam Society: Dung

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Sunday, January 9, 2011

PM grants licence to new university

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the establishment of Tan Tao University (TTU) in the Mekong delta of Long An province, which is expected to begin enrolling students in the 2011-12 academic year.

Located on 103 ha in Tan Duc Educational City, some 12km from HCM City, the new private TTU is unique among Vietnamese universities because it is based on an American model and has a non-profit status.

TTU has been invested in and developed by Tan Tao Group, a leading diversified conglomerate encompassing industrial parks and infrastructure development that includes thermal power plants, renewable energy and water treatment plants, and media technology.

Teaching and studying at TTU will be conducted in English.

Students will study at the TTU campus for three years and the fourth year at a well-known university in the US, according to the Government's website.

Dung also appointed the Ministry of Education and Training to inspect TTU's necessary facilities before it is allowed to open any faculty and enroll students in various fields of study.

The chairwoman of Tan Tao Group and founder and chairwoman of the TTU Board of Advisors, Dang Thi Hoang Yen, said: "TTU is a Vietnamese university that will provide quality education to excellent students who need an opportunity (for an international-standard education)."

At its full operation, TTU will have nine schools, with schools of Business and Economics, Engineering, and Computer Science and Humanities and Languages to be established in the first year of operation./.

Nine to be tried for embezzlement

The Supreme People's Procuracy is prosecuting nine people for embezzling more than VND3.4 billion (US$173,400) in a bridge project in Quang Ninh Province funded with Japanese Official Development Assistance.

Leading figure among those arrested is Bui Tien Dung, ex-executive director of Project Management Unit 18 (PMU-18), a Ministry of Transport unit in charge of construction of roads and other infrastructure.

Dung and seven senior Transport Ministry officials have been charged with of embezzling public property.

The Bai Chay Bridge Project was funded by Japanese credits and Vietnamese budget money. The Transport Ministry was the government’s designated investor.

The suspects are accused of making ghost payments to consultants to appropriate VND1.6 billion, or almost half of the embezzled amount, and misspending the remainder.

Dung was involved in another bribery and gambling scandal three years ago. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Two years later, he was given another three-year sentence for abuse of power.

Nine to be tried for embezzlement

HA NOI — The Supreme People's Procuracy is prosecuting nine people for embezzling more than VND3.4 billion (US$173,400) in a bridge project in Quang Ninh Province funded with Japanese Official Development Assistance.

Dung and seven senior Transport Ministry officials have been charged with of embezzling public property.

The Bai Chay Bridge Project was funded by Japanese credits and Vietnamese budget money. The Transport Ministry was the Government designated investor.

The suspects are accused of making ghost payments to consultants to appropriate VND1.6 billion, or almost half of the embezzled amount, and misspending the remainder.

Dung was involved in another bribery and gambling scandal three years ago. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Two years later, he was given another three-year sentence for abuse of power. — VNS

Saturday, January 8, 2011

PM grants licence to new university

HCM CITY — Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last Thursday approved the establishment of Tan Tao University (TTU) in Long An Province, which is expected to begin enroling students in the 2011-12 academic year.

Teaching and studying at TTU will be conducted in English.

Students will study at the TTU campus for three years and the fourth year at a well-known university in the US, according to the Government's website.

Dung also appointed the Ministry of Education and Training to inspect TTU's necessary facilities before it is allowed to open any faculty and enroll students in various fields of study.

TTU's mission is to produce graduates who will be experts in their fields, committed to life-long learning and adept in the use of creative and critical thinking.

Pharma executive arrested for alleged securities fraud

HCM CITY — Le Van Dung, chairman and general director of Duoc Vien Dong Pharmaceutical Company, has been detained by police for alleged securities price manipulation.

The company is listed on the HCM City Stock Exchange as DVD.

This is the first arrest in Viet Nam involving securities fraud since the country's stock market opened in 2000.

Dung made transactions with other people to allegedly manipulate the price of another pharmaceutical firm, the Duoc Ha Tay Company, listed on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange as DHT.

The transactions were alleged have been made via trading accounts opened by Dung's younger brother Le Van Manh and several other people.

The transactions created false demand, and lured many investors into buying DHT shares at high prices. They then suffered losses.

According to the State Securities Commission, on June 21 Dung held 18.74 per cent of DHT's VND41 billion (US$2.05 million) in chartered capital.

The Medi Investment Company, a shareholder of DVD, also owned several per cent, as well as DVD itself.

In all, they have a stake of 28.68 per cent. Their purchases, as a group, are supposed to be made public when they exceeded 25 per cent under current regulations. But they were not, according to authorities.

DVD and a group of shareholders continued their DHT buying, increasing their ownership to around 60 per cent, according to Tuoi Tre Newspaper.

They managed to inflate the DHT price, from VND30,000 to VND100,000. DVD sold out its stake in July.

Last Friday, DHT shares closed at VND49,300.

In early September, DHT officially blamed the price fall on manipulation by DVD and those people associated with it.

The SSC suspended DVD share issuance to the public for 60 days beginning November 19, basing its decision on the incorrect, insufficient information in the prospectus.

Dung holds around 4 million out of the total of 11.9 million DVD shares.

Last Thursday, DVD executive board relieved Dung of his position as the company chairman and general director.

HOSE announced last Friday that DVD shares would be put on alert as a way to protect investors, saying Dung's arrest might strongly affect the company's operation. — VNS

ODA embezzlers prosecuted

The Supreme People’s Procuracy has prosecuted nine people for embezzling over 3.4 billion VND (roughly 173,400 USD) in a bridge project funded by Japanese ODA in Quang Ninh province.

They include Bui Tien Dung, ex-executive director of the Project Management Unit 18 (PMU-18), a bureau within the Transport Ministry for road construction and other infrastructure facilities. Its budget received funds from overseas donors, including Japanese Official Development Assistance.

Dung and other seven companions, who were high profile officials under the Transport Ministry, are accused of “embezzling public property” while his former deputy, Do Kim Quy, was prosecuted for selling property embezzled by others.

The Bai Chay bridge building project was funded by Japanese credits and Vietnamese State budget. The Ministry of Transport was entrusted by the Government as the investor, of which PMU 18 was the representative with Dung assigned as executive director.

The suspects are accused of making ghost payrolls of consultants to pocket 1.6 billion VND, or almost half of the embezzled amount, and misspending the remainder against rules./.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Can Tho official arrested for accepting bribes from brides

Can Tho official arrested for accepting bribes from brides Can Tho Police took a Justice Department official into custody, on Thursday, for receiving bribes to help local girls obtain necessary papers for marrying foreigners.

Phan Thanh Dung, 58, Deputy Director of the Judicial Administrative Section under the city’s Justice Department, was caught red-handed accepting US$900 in bribes from Tran Ngoc Trung at a coffee shop on Nguyen Trai Street on Thursday, according to Colonel Le Viet Hung, Deputy Chief of the Can Tho Police Department.

Trung, 32, admitted to the police that he gave the sum to Dung in exchange for speeding along paperwork for local girls looking to marry Korean and Taiwanese men.

Many girls in the Mekong Delta region view foreign marraiges as a ticket out of poverty.

After the arrest, the police raided Dung’s office, confiscating $12,125 and VND161 million (US$8,500) in bribes which the official allegedly admitted accepting from local girls seeking foreign marriages.

The police also seized two savings books worth 46 taels of gold (One tael is equivalent to 1.21 ounces), 19 taels of gold, and an illegal gun at Dung’s house on Hai Ba Trung Street in Ninh Kieu District.

The investigation continues to be underway.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Dung Quat contaminates air in central Vietnam

Dung Quat contaminates air in central Vietnam Many people in the central Vietnam’s Quang Ngai Province felt short of breath this past week due to toxic gases emitted by Dung Quat, the country’s first oil refinery.

Managers from Dung Quat Economic Zone, where the refinery is located, tested three samples of the gas on Monday.

All of them contained unacceptable levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2). One sample registered more than twice the permitted amount.

Le Tran Quang Huy, Head of the Environment and Natural Resources Department at Dung Quat Economic Zone said “the harmful emission will largely affect people’s health.”

Local authorities have concluded that the gas came from the refinery; the refinery's investor, PetroVietnam (a subsidiary of Binh Son Petrochemical Refinery Co.) has admitted as much.

Ngo Van Thinh, a local commune official, said they asked Binh Son Company to stop emitting the gas.

Nguyen Hoai Giang, General Director of Binh Son, said the sulfur treatment plant at the refinery stopped operations last Wednesday to adjust it's catalyst.

Following the changes, the sulfur should be burned off by a torch system every day.

Giang said he couldn't stop the whole refinery as the economic losses would be too great.

He said his engineers are working hard to put the treatment plant back into operation soon. The plant treats sulfur to sell to chemical firms for the production of sulfuric acid.

Inhaling sulfur dioxide is associated with acute respiratory symptoms and disease, difficulty in breathing, and premature death, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

“The gas smelled like oxy-fuel welding (which produces acetylene)," said Nguyen Thanh Nhon, a local resident. "It was so strong that my family experienced difficult breathing for many days. We had to close our nose at meals.”

Nhon lives very close to the refinery, so he’s afraid that his children could develop respiratory ailments.

Thursday, December 9, 2010