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In court, former Director of Hanoi Heart Hospital Nguyen Quang Tuan affirmed that he directed the bid rigging not for the purpose of profit.
Former Director of Hanoi Heart Hospital Nguyen Quang Tuan at trial
On the afternoon of April 17, the trial of the medical equipment price hike case at Hanoi Heart Hospital began the questioning session. Former hospital director Nguyen Quang Tuan was the last person to answer the questions among the group of leaders and staff of Hanoi Heart Hospital.
Dr. Nguyen Quang Tuan was once the director of two major hospitals and is a leading professor and doctor known as the "golden hand" in cardiovascular surgery.
After a year and a half of being prosecuted, today Dr. Tuan appeared in court looking haggard, much older, with white hair. The former director of Hanoi Heart Hospital wore a blue prisoner's uniform and flip-flops.
Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan said "no benefit", only received Tet gifts
During his 10-minute testimony, Mr. Tuan expressed his remorse by admitting to the wrongdoings as charged in the indictment. Mr. Tuan answered the court's questions in a soft voice, always bowing his head each time he said, "I accept responsibility."
Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan admitted that he had directed Hoang Nga Company and Kim Hoa Phat Company to deposit medical supplies for Hanoi Heart Hospital to use first. Then, he legalized and completed the procedures for open bidding and shortened bidding.
According to Mr. Tuan, the policy of "sending materials" existed before he became the director of Hanoi Heart Hospital.
Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan also stated that he directed Deputy Director Hoang Thi Ngoc Huong to complete the procedures for payment of bids with the companies. The prices of medical supplies in the bid packages approved by Mr. Tuan were equivalent to the quotations sent by the units.
"These items are mostly traditional items of the hospital for many years, so the defendant directed how to buy the items at or lower than the price he had previously purchased. The defendant did not direct Huong to contact AIC Valuation Company for appraisal. The defendant only gave general instructions on how to pay the contractors," former director Nguyen Quang Tuan explained.
"Did the defendant benefit?" - the court asked.
"No" - Mr. Tuan answered firmly, then bowed his head.
However, Mr. Tuan admitted that during the 2016-2017 Lunar New Year, he received "Tet gifts" from businesses of 10,000 USD, a bottle of wine and a box of cigars.
Mr. Tuan also admitted that these businesses provided "additional support" to the hospital but did not remember how much.
The defendants at trial
According to the prosecution's accusation, Mr. Tuan directed Hoang Thi Ngoc Huong to negotiate with contractors, asking contractors to support Hanoi Heart Hospital with 2-5% of the package value.
Among them, Hoang Nga Company annually supports 300 million VND, Kim Hoa Phat Company annually supports 60 million VND. These amounts are not recorded in the accounting books by the accounting department.
"The bidding is wrong but there is no other way"
Doctor Nguyen Quang Tuan also admitted that there was no quotation for goods and equipment and that purchases were based only on "comparing prices from the following year to the previous year and comparing prices from other hospitals, if lower, then buy".
Mr. Tuan admitted that "the bidding was wrong, but the defendant had no other choice." At this point, the judge interrupted Mr. Tuan and asked the defendant to only answer "yes or no" to the question, and that the presentation would be reserved for the next debate.
When asked what he thought of the valuation result, Dr. Tuan hesitated for a moment and then replied, "It's hard to say." The former director of Hanoi Heart Hospital explained that if the valuation result was considered the market price, "it would be unreasonable," because it was much lower than the purchase price at that time.
However, Mr. Tuan also admitted that when implementing the bidding packages, if the hospital had compared the material prices with the market price list, "there would have been no violations". Therefore, Mr. Tuan said that he "has the highest responsibility in this case".
Mr. Tuan added that he had returned all the money given by the company, a total of 250 million VND. The wife of the former director of Hanoi Heart Hospital also paid more than 6 billion VND to remedy the consequences.
Former hospital deputy director Hoang Thi Ngoc Huong in court
Previously, Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan's subordinate, Deputy Director Hoang Thi Ngoc Huong, also admitted her mistakes in the bidding process, from price appraisal, document preparation... Ms. Huong admitted her mistakes as charged in the indictment.
Ms. Huong said that Mr. Tuan directed in meetings, requiring the procurement to: "Ensure progress, create conditions for suppliers, and complete documents later".
Ms. Huong also admitted to instructing her staff to contact AIC Valuation Company. Although the hospital did not have any meeting to discuss and agree, she still directed the legalization of the appointment of this company.
The former Deputy Director of Hanoi Heart Hospital stated that the appraisal results matched the prices and list of materials sent by the hospital. However, she did not know how much the price of materials had been inflated by the enterprise because she "did not directly do it, but only controlled the final results".
"The bidding process was wrong, but it stemmed from the advance payment of materials, so when paying, it could not be paid just like that, but had to go through the bidding process. The payment should have been finalized before implementing the bidding according to market prices, then the violations like today would not have happened," former Deputy Director of the hospital Hoang Thi Ngoc Huong explained.
The indictment announced in court shows that since 2015, former Director Nguyen Quang Tuan had a policy of allowing some businesses to deposit supplies for the hospital to use in advance. The leaders of Hoang Nga and Kim Hoa Phat companies had a previous relationship with Mr. Tuan, so they were allowed to sell supplies to the hospital. However, the price of supplies was determined according to the agreed unit price between Mr. Tuan and the company. Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan was accused of abusing his power to illegally intervene in bidding activities. Violations were identified from the stage of preparing bidding documents, unit prices, types to the issuance of price appraisal certificates. It is worth mentioning that the prices of many types of materials were inflated by 2-20 million VND, of which the highest was the stent provided by Hoang Nga, which was "inflated" more than twice, from 17 to 37 million VND each, the prosecutor's office concluded. The total damage of the case was determined to be nearly 54 billion VND. |
According to Tuoi Tre
