Vietnam urged to probe ’$4.3 Bln’ shipbuilding scandal

Vietnamese lawmakers on Monday demanded answers in the case of state-run shipbuilding group Vinashin, which has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy ahead of a key Communist Party Congress.

Vietnamese lawmakers on Monday demanded answers in the case of state-run shipbuilding group Vinashin, which has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy ahead of a key Communist Party Congress.

One deputy, Nguyen Minh Thuyet, called for a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who appointed the former chairman of Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin), Pham Thanh Binh.

“It’s painful for me to say that,” the deputy said.

Binh was suspended in July and later arrested over the group’s debts, which local media said amounted to at least 80 trillion dong (4.3 billion dollars).

Other senior managers were also told to step aside to allow a probe into the company’s operations.

The drama unfolded as political tensions rise ahead of the ruling Communist Party’s five-yearly Congress in January, when top leadership posts are determined.

Dung last month blamed “weaknesses of economic management” and called the Vinashin case a “serious matter”. He told the National Assembly that the government has conducted “self-criticism” and taken steps to resolve the issue.

But it is not enough for government officials to say they have conducted an internal review, said Thuyet.

He called on the chamber to “establish a standing committee to investigate responsibilities of the government”.

The questions might be difficult but answers are a must, said another deputy, Huynh Ngoc Dang.

“The government should have a more reasonable answer on Vinashin before the National Assembly and the people,” Dang said.

“Who takes the final responsibility ?” asked deputy Pham Thi Loan. “Those who made mistakes need to apologise to the people, and resign.”

Although more than 90 percent of Vietnam’s nearly 500 lawmakers are Communist Party members, they have in recent years become more vocal over the country’s major problems.

Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank’s Vietnam country director, said the government is drawing the necessary lessons after Vinashin.

“Enterprises that can basically do whatever they want, are not answerable to a good governance structure and getting resources they want to finance whatever, those are the things that cause some of the risks that we’ve seen emerge on the Vinashin case,” she said last month.

A senior National Assembly official, citing a government report, has said Vinashin’s financial troubles resulted from “its large and widespread investments.”

Observers have expressed concern about the scandal’s impact on Vietnam’s economy.

The reported loss of 4.3 billion dollars is about 4.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product last year.

“Vinashin, that’s a four or five-billion-dollar loss… It’s enormous,” said a Western businessman with extensive experience in the country, adding the scandal had “clearly not improved the image of the country” internationally.

“We were hearing rumours for two years that Vinashin was going to blow up.”

Another foreign businessman, also with years of experience in Vietnam, speculated that Prime Minister Dung’s political opponents allowed the scandal to finally surface in the state-controlled press in a bid to damage him before the Congress.- AFP

Tags: Vietnam Shipbuilding industry, Vinashin