Hanoi CDC officials pocketed $47,200 in Covid test kit scandal: police

By Son Ha   July 1, 2022 | 09:40 pm PT
Hanoi CDC officials pocketed $47,200 in Covid test kit scandal: police
Hanoi's CDC director Truong Quang Viet. Photo courtesy of Hanoi People's Committee
The director of Hanoi's CDC and some of its staff accepted bribes to let a local firm distribute its Covid-19 test kits at inflated prices, the police have alleged.

Truong Quang Viet, the chief of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Le Thi Bich Tuyen, head of its finance-accounting department, reportedly took VND1.1 billion (US$47,200) from Viet A Technologies JSC to help it win two bids to supply the test kits in 2020.

They were arrested last month for "violating regulations on bidding, causing serious consequences."

According to the police, their violations caused the city a loss of VND9 billion.

In January this year Phan Quoc Viet, general director of Viet A, admitted he had inflated the price of Covid test kits by 45 percent and sent around VND800 billion ($35.2 million) as "bonuses" to the company’s partners.

Viet said the bribes helped him earn over VND500 billion.

So far almost 70 people have been detained, including former Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long and former Hanoi chairman Chu Ngoc Anh.

 
 
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