Who is the General Director Phan Quoc Viet who was just arrested for "inflating the price" of COVID-19 test kits?

Mr. Phan Quoc Viet was just arrested for "inflating the price" of COVID-19 test kits - Photo: DV

Viet A Technology Joint Stock Company (Viet A Company) was established in 2007, headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, with a registered capital of only 80 million VND.

Viet A Company specializes in molecular biology and introduces itself as having a team of professional staff with more than 10 years of experience in the field of molecular biology.

This is also one of the first enterprises in Vietnam to successfully apply and commercialize kits using Realtime PCR and molecular hybridization techniques very early.

In recent years, Viet A has been known as a "giant" in the pharmaceutical industry in Vietnam and is the first enterprise licensed by the Ministry of Health to mass produce rapid test kits in Vietnam.

Mr. Phan Quoc Viet, 41 years old, Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of Viet A Company, once shared with the press that he is a medical student, and was lucky enough to enter a "hot" major, which is molecular biology at Hanoi National University.

And luckier still, his company has been chosen by the Military Medical Academy as a partner for more than a decade, notably by cooperating with the Military Medical Academy to successfully produce a "made in Vietnam" COVID-19 test kit in March 2020.

In April 2020, the company was licensed by the Ministry of Health to register the circulation of the first COVID-19 test kit produced in Vietnam. At this time, Mr. Phan Quoc Viet said that the company's production capacity is about 10,000 kits/day, and when needed, it can increase capacity by 3 times. The price of each kit is from 400,000 - 600,000 VND/test, many times lower than the world.

Before successfully producing the "made in Vietnam" COVID-19 test kit, Viet A Company was also licensed by the Ministry of Health to produce 15 test kits, including many pathogens that cause tuberculosis, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hand - foot - mouth disease, HPV...

In addition to test kits, Viet A Company also won many bids at major hospitals across the country. Some of the bids the company won include: the 2016-2017 chemical supply package (medicine, chemicals, medical supplies) for Military Hospital 175; the 2018-2019 bid package for supplying disinfectant chemicals, testing equipment and biological products for the Central Dermatology Hospital.

At Hanoi Medical University Hospital, this company won the bid to supply specialized testing chemicals and disinfectant solutions. Recently, Viet A Company won the bid to supply chemicals, consumables for machines and consumables for testing activities at Bach Mai Hospital.

Mr. Phan Quoc Viet once emphasized to the press that he does not support some businesses taking advantage of the Vietnamese spirit of using Vietnamese products to push up product prices.

"My point of view is that Vietnamese people use good products at good prices. Domestic manufacturing enterprises serve their own people. So why raise prices to exorbitant levels?", Mr. Phan Quoc Viet once affirmed.

However, contrary to what has been confirmed in the press, the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Police Agency has just issued a decision to prosecute Mr. Phan Quoc Viet to investigate violations in inflating the price of COVID-19 test kits.

Initial investigation results show that, taking advantage of the urgent need for COVID-19 testing in localities across the country, this product is on the list of products subject to the shortened bidding method, so Phan Quoc Viet proactively provided medical equipment, supplies, and biological products in advance for use by hospitals and CDCs in provinces and cities.

Then Mr. Viet colluded with the leaders of these units to legalize the bidding documents by using legal entities in the system to create product offer documents, falsely confirming quotes... much higher than the production cost.

At the same time, in order to be assigned to supply medical equipment and supplies in advance, consume in large quantities, and settle payments according to the prices proposed by Viet A Company, Phan Quoc Viet also negotiated, agreed, and paid for cadres and leaders of units to purchase goods with very large amounts of money.

To gain illegal profits and pay money outside the contract, Phan Quoc Viet and the group of Viet A Company inflated the price of equipment and input material costs into the price structure explanation, determining the selling price at 470,000 VND/kit; agreed and paid a percentage of the contract to hospital leaders and CDCs of provinces and cities during the product supply process.

Up to now, the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Police Agency has initially clarified the violations in the sale of COVID-19 test kits by Viet A Company to CDC Hai Duong through 5 contracts with a total value of 151 billion VND. Viet paid a percentage outside the contract to Mr. Pham Duy Tuyen, Director of CDC Hai Duong, an amount of nearly 30 billion VND.

According to Tuoi Tre