The Ministry of Public Security on Tuesday indicted six former officials at a branch of the state-owned Vietnam Development Bank (VDB) for their alleged wrongdoing that caused a total loss of over US$47 million.
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Police have arrested Trinh Tuan Man, the former director of the VDB’s Minh Hai Branch in southern Ca Mau Province’s Ca Mau City, Huynh Quang Xuan, former head of the branch’s credit department, and Tran Kieu Oanh, a former employee at the department.
The three others, Vu Van Hoan, ex-deputy director of the branch, and Phan Thanh Toan and Phan Thanh Hai, both ex-deputy heads of the credit department, were released on bail but are not allowed to leave their residences.
All six defendants are charged with “breaching regulations on loan provision in the operations of credit institutions,” under Article 179 of the Penal Code, the ministry’s investigation police agency said.
According to the case file, during 2009-2011, these former officials violated regulations on lending when they granted soft loans to many seafood processors and exporters in Ca Mau and Bac Lieu Provinces, located in southern Vietnam.
Such preferential loans were aimed at helping the seafood businesses expand production, processing, and export activities.
However, these ex-bankers neither examined the loan applications nor supervised the use of the loans by these businesses, leading to a situation in which the lending was used for the wrong purposes, causing great losses.
Specifically, from June 18, 2010 to January 24, 2011, the former officials approved 11 preferential loans totaling over VND100 billion ($4.72 million) to Minh Chau Seafood Processing, Import and Export Co Ltd.
The house of Trinh Tuan Man, former director of the VDB Minh Hai Branch in the southern city of Ca Mau (Photo: Tuoi Tre)
It was not until the company became insolvent that the branch examined its loan files and discovered all the company’s mortgages were valued at just about VND20 billion ($943,000), much less than the company’s debt to the bank.
Similarly, the above defendants conducted procedures to provide 18 loans totaling nearly VND300 billion ($14.15 million) to Ngoc Sinh Seafood Trading, Processing and Export Enterprise from July to September 2009.
After that, these defendants continued to approve two loans worth VND12 billion ($566,000) in June 2010 although knowing that this company was insolvent.
When the total debt of Ngoc Sinh decreased to VND130 billion ($6.13 million), the branch checked the company’s mortgaged property and found that they were valued at only VND90 billion ($4.2 million).
Investigators said that these defendants, through their violations of lending regulations, have caused a total loss of nearly VND1 trillion ($47.17 milion) in unrecoverable loans to the branch.
The police are expanding their investigation into the scandal.
Vietnam criminally charges ex-bankers with causing $47 mln loss Related image(s)
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