Former Chairman of the Board of Members of Vietnam Cement Company was arrested

On March 5, the Ministry of Public Security announced that the Department of Investigation Police on Corruption, Economic Crimes, and Smuggling (C03) had prosecuted Mr. Chung and three subordinates, Nguyen Ngoc Anh (former General Director), Du Ngoc Long (former Director of the Project Management Board), and Hoang Ngoc Hieu (former Head of the Appraisal Department of the Vietnam Cement Corporation) to investigate the crime of violating regulations on management and use of State assets, causing loss and waste.

Of these, 3 defendants were temporarily detained, while Nguyen Ngoc Anh was released on bail.

Initially, the defendants were accused of committing violations when preparing documents and implementing the Vicem commercial and operations center building project at Lot 10E6 of Cau Giay urban area. This project was invested at VND1,245 billion but during the implementation process, there were many violations causing especially serious loss and waste of state assets.

According to the announcement of the Ministry of Public Security, the prosecution of the case and the defendant stemmed from the National Assembly's resolution on promoting thrift practice and combating waste and in the spirit of direction of General Secretary To Lam.

Vicem Tower was invested by this corporation since 2010 on a land area of ​​nearly 8,500 m2, construction area of ​​2,800 m2; scale of 31 floors above ground, 4 basements. The initial total investment was 1,951 billion VND, then in 2011 it was adjusted to 2,743 billion VND. The investment is to build Vicem's office, member units, conference hall and commercial services.

In 2011, the tower was started, however after completing the construction of the entire underground structure, the main part of the building was shelved from August 2015 until now.

In the following period, Vicem repeatedly requested the Ministry of Construction to allow it to develop a plan and find a partner to transfer the tower to recover capital. The Ministry of Construction reported and the Prime Minister agreed to allow the Corporation to transfer in March 2017.

However, this activity could not be implemented because the project encountered many difficulties regarding investment law, land, and the arrangement and handling of real estate assets belonging to state-owned enterprises.

Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem) was formerly a union of cement enterprises to manage cement factories nationwide. Currently, Vicem is a 45-year-old enterprise under the Ministry of Construction. Vicem manages 10 factories nationwide with 16 production lines, a capacity of 20 million tons of clinker and 27 million tons of cement per year.