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Turmoil in Vietnam’s political fight against corruption

Turmoil in Vietnam’s political fight against corruption
Vietnamese media reported that investigators are seeking charges against the once-rising political star Dinh La Thang for economic mismanagement in two separate cases involving million-dollar losses at fuel giant PetroVietnam.

Thang served as board chairman of the state-owned PetroVietnam between 2006 and 2011 before his political career took off as Minister of Transport in Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s cabinet.

His political career was all but doomed in May this year, when he was voted out of the then 19-member Politburo, the Party’s decision-making body, and later fired as the top leader of Ho Chi Minh City. He was later appointed as deputy head of the Central Economic Commission, which advises the Party on economic policies.

The prosecution's proposals against Thang come shortly after his arrest on December 8 that riveted Vietnam. Thang’s younger brother Dinh Manh Thang, another oil executive, was arrested the next day as part of the corruption crackdown.

In addition, Dinh La Thang is facing separate charges of economic mismanagement at the state oil firm and the scandal-hit Hanoi-based bank Dai Duong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OceanBank).

Investigators at the Ministry of Public Security said that Thang should be charged with “deliberate violation of state regulations on economic management", causing serious losses at PetroVietnam Construction Corporation (PVC) and separately for a failed investment in the scandal-hit OceanBank. The Supreme People's Procuracy, Vietnam's highest prosecutors' agency, will consider ratifying the charges.

The PVC case involves the notorious runaway Trinh Xuan Thanh, PVC’s former board chairman and general director who is set to stand trial in January for causing losses of around VND3.2 trillion ($147m) at the unit.

According to the investigation, Thang, as board chairman of the state-owned PetroVietnam, appointed Thanh as PVC’s general director in December 2007, before making various promotion, funding and recruitment decisions to boost Thanh’s power and facilitate the company’s operations.

In 2010, Thang assigned PVC to be in charge of a thermal power plant without assessing its capability or experience, and his poor supervision caused losses worth more than VND119bn to the state budget.

Thanh also allegedly embezzled VND4bn at another PVC thermal power project.

In the OceanBank case, PetroVietnam held a VND800bn stake in the lender, but that was completely written off when the central bank took it over in 2015.

According to investigators, despite OceanBank’s “small and inefficient” operations back in 2008, Thang plowed ahead with a 20% stake purchase without appraising it or reporting the venture to the then-prime minister.

Vietnam’s energy and banking sectors have been at the centre of the sweeping clean-up spearheaded by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. Scores of people have been ensnared.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, speaking at a teleconference between the Government and localities nationwide in Hanoi on December 28, said directions to be issued by the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the prime minister will ban giving and accepting Tet gifts.

“The fight against corruption should begin from the grassroots level to create visible changes,” he noted.

The December 28-29 conference is the largest annual conference of the Government to evaluate the national socio-economic performance in 2017 and set forth key solutions and tasks for 2018.-