The recent replacement of some top executives at a corruption-ridden Ministry of Construction firm was just normal personnel rotation, and had nothing to do with alleged scams in the firm, a ministry official has said.
Nguyen Thanh Minh, the Ministry of Construction’s office chief, Tuesday also denied allegations the ministry had hushed up massive financial wrongdoings at the firm, the Da Nang-based construction and building materials manufacturer COSEVCO.
Last week COSEVCO’s chairman Tran Xuan Dinh and six other officials were arrested.
They have been charged with “deliberately violating state economic management regulations, causing serious consequences,” and are being held in Hanoi pending further investigation.
Before the arrests, many senior personnel stepped down for unexplained reasons.
State Audit reports released last year showed COSEVCO owed around VND4.1 trillion (US$257 million) to creditors.
They also showed it had incurred a total loss of VND220 billion (US$13.8 million) during Dinh’s tenure as chairman and then CEO from 2003.
Speaking to Thanh Nien Tuesday, Minh said the ministry would dispatch a task force to assist the police in the investigation into possible scams at the corporation, promising anyone violating the law would be punished.
But he insisted that the officials had stepped down and been replaced as part of the firm’s normal rotation policy.
Curious corp
In late 2003, after a slew of financial wrongdoings came to light, Dinh was sacked as chairman of the company but remained its CEO.
His successor, Nguyen Cong Huan, retired within a few months, but not before complaining to the ministry about massive corruption by Dinh.
But Minh told Thanh Nien that Huan had only stepped down because he was incapable of handling the corporation and not due to any infighting.
After Huan departed, the ministry appointed Pham Huu Minh as the new chairman.
Pham Huu Minh sought Dinh’s explanation about some construction projects that had incurred heavy losses but he was soon transferred to another job in the ministry.
But the ministry’s Minh claimed Pham Huu Minh had resigned only because of poor health.
Astonishingly, in 2005 Dinh was reinstalled as chairman and Ngo Khiet became the new CEO.
Many of Dinh’s subordinates had sent letters to the ministry accusing him of corruption and nepotism.
Grilled about the suspicious reappointment, Minh said it had been carried out properly.
Whispers of a purge within the corporation became loud last August after Dinh proposed Khiet be dismissed, though the latter was credited with turning things around after replacing Dinh as CEO at the foundering company.
Despite widespread protests by the company staff, Khiet got the sack.
But the ministry’s Minh told Thanh Nien that Khiet’s dismissal had been for incompetence.
Asked if someone was orchestrating a cover-up of Dinh’s wrongdoings, the Ministry of Construction, predictably, said no.
But it promised to get to the bottom of the case.
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