For accountant to use digital signature to 'embezzle' budget, principal gets sentenced

The principal assigned the accountant to approve the expense.

Nguyen Dang Hanh (born in 1973, residing in Ung Hoe commune, Ninh Giang) was appointed by the Chairman of Ninh Giang District People's Committee as Principal of Ninh Hai Primary School from August 25, 2016. Ha Thi Tuyet (born in 1982, residing in Nghia An commune, also Ninh Giang district) was appointed as accountant and clerk from October 5, 2018.

In 2021, Ninh Hai Primary School opened an account at the Ninh Giang District State Treasury. This is a regular expenditure account using autonomous funds allocated by the state budget every year. The funds are used to pay salaries, allowances, insurance, stationery, and repair facilities...

When expenses arise, Tuyet will base on the actual expenses and related documents to create a state budget withdrawal paper on the public service software system, then use her digital signature to sign and send it to Hanh for approval in the unit head section.

Once the principal approves, the state budget withdrawal paper is automatically transferred to the Ninh Giang District State Treasury to make online payment on the public service software system.

The public service accounts of the principal and accountant of Ninh Hai Primary School are registered by email. On the public service software system, Ninh Hai Primary School has registered the personal email addresses of the principal and accountant to receive notifications of transaction results with the State Treasury.

During the investigation, the authorities checked Hanh's email and determined that she had received a notice from the treasury but had not opened the notice.

Ninh Hai Primary School registered to use the mobile phone balance monitoring service with Tuyet's phone number. Hanh did not register for this service.

In 2021, because Hanh was not proficient in using digital signatures, she was sometimes busy, so at some times she gave Hanh's digital signature to Tuyet to use to approve the budget withdrawal paper.

During the process of giving the digital signature to Tuyet, Hanh did not check or control Tuyet's use of her digital signature. From there, Tuyet had the intention of appropriating state budget money by creating false accounts to withdraw money from the account of Ninh Hai Primary School.

Creating fake documents to "embezzle" the budget

In 2021, Tuyet contacted some people to discuss buying some equipment for the school.

Tuyet then tried to get the invoices of the above mentioned businesses to create a budget withdrawal paper. When approved by the Ninh Giang District State Treasury, the money was transferred to the bank accounts of the business owners listed in the budget withdrawal paper. Tuyet would go to the business owners to request the money back, with the reason that the school did not need to purchase products and goods as before.

Using these tricks, Tuyet created 6 fake state budget withdrawal papers of over 164 million VND, then appropriated the above amount.

On November 11, Ninh Giang District People's Court held the first instance trial of Ha Thi Tuyet and Nguyen Dang Hanh.

In court, the defendants confessed their crimes and repented. After committing the crimes, the defendants voluntarily compensated for the damages and resolved the consequences.

The trial panel determined that defendant Hanh, the principal of Ninh Hai Primary School, was the account owner but was weak in management, subjective, did not check and control the revenues, expenditures and his digital signature, allowing Tuyet to embezzle more than 164 million.

The court sentenced Ha Thi Tuyet to 4 years and 6 months in prison for abusing her position and power to appropriate property; Nguyen Dang Hanh to 12 months in prison, suspended, for lack of responsibility causing serious consequences.

It was the lack of responsibility and over-trust of the defendant Hanh's subordinates that created a loophole for the defendant Tuyet to greedily appropriate public property. Both defendants paid a heavy price for their crimes.

The above case is a warning bell for heads of agencies, units and localities in financial management and supervision.