VietNam Society: deputy director

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Chemists rush to meet good-practice deadline

A drugstore owned by the SGG Pharmacy group has registered with Good Pharmacy Practices standards in HCM City. Pharmacies nationwide are rushing to be registered by January 1. —VNA/VNS Photo The Anh

HA NOI — Pharmacies are racing to register their facilities under Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) standards as the Ministry of Health's January 1 deadline nears.

"The number of GPP applications has increased from one or two per month to nearly 100 in September," said Deputy Director of the Ha Noi Health Department Nguyen Van Yen.

The department said that about 1,100 among the capital's 1,900 pharmacies had received GPP registration, and its representatives worry that their limited resources might be overloaded as more pharmacies rushed to meet to the deadline.

Pharmacist Minh Chinh, who owns Minh Chinh Pharmacy on Quang Trung Street, said she had to invest about US$3,000 into her store in preparation for GPP registration.

Health authorities explain that pharmacies do not want to qualify for GPP because registering will force them to invest more money into their infrastructure and facilities.

An investment of $2,000 or $3,000 is not much for a pharmacy in urban areas, but the amount can be a serious challenge to pharmacies in the countryside. Several pharmacies are waiting to see if the health ministry will postpone their the implementation of their policy.

With nearly 3,700 pharmacies, HCM City is facing similar problems. About 1,000 pharmacies have GPP licences, which accounts for 27 per cent of the city's total. The city's health authorities expect that about 1,500 pharmacies will be able to meet GPP standards by the end of 2010.

"We asked the health ministry and the HCM City's People Committee to extend the GPP deadline for a few months so more pharmacies would be able to register for GPP", said Deputy Director of the HCM City Health Department Pham Khanh Phong Lan.

Lan explained that GPP licence required pharmacies to follow sales and consulting standards that many establishments had little experience in following.

HCM City has 4,586 pharmacists with university degrees. However, most of the graduates have little experience with consulting or sales. The municipal health department plans to strengthen its communication activities concerning GPP and will revoke their licences if the pharmacies violate GPP regulations, according to Lan.

"We also requested that pharmacies without GPP licences be permitted to sell only non-prescription drugs for an extended amount of time", she said.

In 2007, the Ministry of Health stated that pharmacies that failed to meet GPP standards would be closed. The GPP regulation is expected to prevent people from buying unnecessary and self prescribing drugs. — VNS

Friday, November 19, 2010

HCMC transport official stand trial for bribery

Huynh Ngoc Si is former deputy director of HCMC Department of Transport

Photo: VNA

Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court began Friday a four-day trial of a former city official who was involved in a corruption case that led to the Japanese government suspending aid to Vietnam in 2008.

Huynh Ngoc Si, the former deputy director of the HCMC Transport Department, was charged with taking bribes totaling US$262,000 from a Japanese consulting company in exchange for the provision of consultancy services for a Japan-funded project.

Si, who doubles as the former director of the Japan-funded East-West Highway and the Water Environment Improvement projects in HCMC, was sentenced to three years in prison with “abuse of power” charges by the HCMC People’s Court after a two-day trial on September 25 last year.

Si’s ex-deputy, Le Qua, received two-year sentence with similar charges.

Si and Qua rented a house in HCMC’s District 3 to executives from Japan’s Pacific Consultants International (PCI), who paid US$5,000 a month to use the property as an office.

PCI officials paid a total $80,000 in rent in 2001 and 2002.

The house was owned by the project, but the executives were found guilty of pocketing the ‘rent money’ instead of passing it on to the project management board.

Four months after the trial, the Ministry of Security announced they laid “taking bribes” charges against Si under Article 279 of the Criminal Code.

A conviction on the charge can result in a jail sentence of seven years to death penalty.

The new trial was held at the request of the HCMC People’s Procuracy, which said the sentences given to the two officials were too lenient.

In December 2008, the Ministry of Public Security began a corruption investigation into the two infrastructure projects, estimated to cost $760 million, after an official request by the Tokyo prosecution agency.

According to the agency, PCI executives admitted in a Tokyo court they had given $820,000 between 2003 and 2006 to the former director of the projects to win consulting contracts.

At Vietnam’s request, Japan sent 3,050 pages of document regarding the PCI case to the Supreme People’s Procuracy in both English and Japanese late last year.

But it wasn’t until recently that the Vietnamese procurators announced they had finished the translation.

According to Vietnamese investigators, they found evidences that Si accepted $262,000 from PCI in May 2003, so they decided to lay “taking bribes” charges against him.

Si, who oversaw the two projects in his capacity of deputy director of HCMC Transport Department, was suspended from his post and all Party activities by the department’s Party Committee after the scandal.

In December 2008, Japan suspended its aid funding to Vietnam until the government took "meaningful" steps to eliminate corruption in public works programs.

Japan’s ODA program to Vietnam was resumed in early April last year.

At the new trial, 13 witnesses have been summoned, of which 10 are former officers of the East-West highway project. The three others are former officers of PCI.

Around 40 local and foreign reporters attended the trial.

VietNam Society