HCMC agriculture official warned over loss-causing violations in previous avatar

The Ho Chi Minh City Party Inspection Committee issued the warning Friday to Nguyen Van Truc, Deputy Director of HCMC Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, over wrongdoings he committed as the CEO of the state-owned Saigon Agriculture Corporation (Sagri).

The city’s Party watchdog said mistakes made by Truc as a board member and CEO of Sagri from August 2009 to February 2015 had resulted in losses to the state exchequer.

Ho Van Ngon, former deputy CEO of Sagri from August 2013 to December last year, was also issued the same warning.

The Communist Party of Vietnam has four modes of punishment against members: reprimand, warning, demotion and expulsion.

The current CEO of Sangri, Le Tan Hung, its board chairman Van Trong Dung and former chief accountant Nguyen Thi Thuy have been arrested for management violations and misuse of state-owned property leading to losses or waste of resources.

If they are charged and found guilty, they face up to 20 years in jail.

Inspectors said Hung, a younger brother of former HCMC party chief Le Thanh Hai, and Thuy had illegally co-signed expenses of more than VND13 billion ($556,000) for overseas study trips by Sagri employees.

State auditors also found Sagri had committed errors in renting land, making unauthorized investment collaborations and developing real estate on land allocated for agro-forestry-fishery production.

They also found that several of Sagri’s investment activities had resulted in huge losses.