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Mr. Dinh La Thang was also Minister of Transport.
On the morning of December 16, hearing the case related to the Ho Chi Minh City – Trung Luong highway project, Mr. Dinh La Thang denied the accusation and the testimony of his subordinates.
The trial is expected to last from 14-25/21, the trial of Mr. Thang and 18 other defendants in the wrong case causing a loss to the state of more than 700 billion VND.
Refute the accusation
Mr. Dinh La Thang said that the accusation has no basis for his responsibility if he is not “related”.
Thang said the allegation mentioned 6 items is incorrect than 5 items.
The ‘unsubstantiated’ contents listed by Mr. Thang include:
Giving him the responsibility of directing everything, while the project lasted many years, he only signed for the Prime Minister to sign an establishment and review decision. The vice ministers involved in each specific project are directly responsible.
He does not assign functions to any deputy for this case, but whoever is in charge of any field does his own work.
Any statement in the presentation and in court about his influence on the project is incorrect.
The amount of the 725 billion damages comes from another project (Mr. Thang did not specify which project)
Thang also denied that the stated allegation that he once called Duong Tuan Minh, CEO of Cuu Long Company, to “ask for help”, is incorrect.
Deny subordinate testimony
Mr. Thang claimed that the statements of the other defendants previously had many inaccuracies.
For example, Mr. Thang said that Mr. Nguyen Hong Truong (former Vice Minister of Transport) stated that all the documents signed by him were sent to Mr. Thang “not true”.
Mr. Thang cited many documents that Mr. Truong signed but did not send, including the Prime Minister’s response to the Ministry of Transport to receive the project.
Mr. Thang said he was not aware of this document. It also did not receive a decision on the price of the asset and the decision of the winning bidder and the contract signed by the two parties.
Mr. Thang stated that in this project, he did not direct directly, but appointed Vice Minister Nguyen Hong Truong.
Mr. Thang also claimed that he had no relative, economic or political relationship with Dinh Ngoc System (Ut “bald”), denied the testimony of Mr. Duong Tuan Minh – CEO of Cuu Long Company.
Before that, Mr. Minh stated that he called Mr. Thang to introduce him to the Thai Son Company of the Ministry of National Defense. Due to this introduction, Mr. Minh was ‘affected’, so he went through the legal proceedings to auction the right to collect the Trung Luong highway toll even though he was aware of the regulations on the sale of state property.
Mr. Thang believes that Mr. Minh has changed his testimony because both Mr. Minh and Mr. System previously said that he did not present the project.
According to the indictment, the Ho Chi Minh City – Trung Luong highway project is funded by the state budget, so the sale of toll collection rights is the sale of state property and the proceeds from this are state property.
The Ministry of Transport (MOT) is assigned by the Prime Minister to lead the development of a project to sell toll collection rights to return the investment budget for the project.
Mr. Thang, then Minister of Transportation, ‘derived from personal motivation’, called on Mr. Duong Tuan Minh – Managing Director of Cuu Long Corporation – to introduce Mr. Dinh Ngoc System and facilitate for Mr. System won the bid.
Mr. System made fraudulent financial statements of two related subsidiaries from profit or loss to win the bid.
After winning the tender, Mr. System was charged with revenue cheating, illegally tampering with the administration software of the Ministry of Transportation to seize state property.
Mr. Thang, Mr. System, Mr. Truong and several other officers of Mr. Thang were charged with damaging the 725 billion VND state property in the Trung Luong Highway project.
