Nguyen Thanh Tai, former Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, and four accomplices involved in the case “violating regulations on the management and use of State assets, causing losses and wastefulness” have filed an appeal against the judgments which were announced at the first instance trial.

Defendant Nguyen Thanh Tai, former Vice Chairman of
the HCM City People’s Committee, at the trial

At the first trial on September 20, Tai was sentenced to eight years in prison for “violating regulations on the management and use of State assets, causing losses and wastefulness”.

According to the jury, the land plot at No. 8-12 Le Duan Street in District 1, covering a total area of over 4,800 sq. m., is owned by the State and assigned to the HCM City Housing Management and Trading Company for management and leased out to four companies subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. On November 20, 2007, the municipal People’s Committee approved the construction of a hotel and part of a commercial centre there.

The HCM City Housing Management and Trading Company, with the currently wanted Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy being the director, proposed the municipal People’s Committee permit it to set up a new legal entity in the form of a joint stock company and to mobilise other capital sources to implement the project. This proposal was accepted by Tai as a Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee.

Taking advantage of her personal relationship with Tai, Le Thi Thanh Thuy, who was then Chairwoman of the Hoa Thang Nam One-Member Limited Company, suggested the HCM City Housing Management and Trading Company allow her business to take part in this project.

After that, Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy signed a document introducing the Hoa Thang Nam company to the project, which was approved by Tai without assigning a specialised agency to verify this firm’s experience and financial capacity.

The four companies under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which were renting land at the plot, agreed with the Kinh Do Investment Co. Ltd to establish a new legal entity which was the Lavenue Investment JSC and let Le Thi Thanh Thuy act as Chairwoman of its board of directors.

Later, those companies transferred their shares, putting the land plot into private ownership, thus causing a loss of over VND1.927 trillion (US$83.1 million at the current exchange rate) to the State.

The jury concluded that Le Thi Thanh Thuy incited Tai so as to profit from the documents signed by him. Meanwhile, Dao Anh Kiet (former Director of the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment), Nguyen Hoai Nam (former Secretary of the Party Committee of District 2), and Truong Van Ut (former deputy head of the land management section at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment) knew that the project’s dossier was insufficient and hadn’t been approved or verified but still proposed the approval of decisions that ran counter to legal regulations.

At the trial, Le Thi Thanh Thuy was given a five-year jail term, Kiet five years (total penalty is 11 years and six months, including the sentence in a previous case), Nam four years, and Ut three years (total penalty is eight years, including the sentence in a previous case) also for “violating regulations on the management and use of State assets, causing losses and wastefulness”.

Besides, the jury assigned the HCM City People’s Committee to revoke all the land use right certificates and other papers related to the land plot previously granted to the Lavenue company.

It also decided that the five defendants have to compensate over VND4.7 billion for the loss. The money the Hoa Thang Nam company used to make capital contribution to the Lavenue company will also be confiscated.

Previously, on October 2, the Head of the municipal People's Procuracy appealed against the first instance judgment on the handling of evidence and the losses in the case.

According to the Procuracy, the first-instance judgment’s declaration to withdraw only 126 out of VND157 billion as the contributed capital of the HCM City Housing Management and Trading Company, still causes a loss of over VND30 billion to the State budget.

In addition, the Procuracy said the losses must be determined at the time of prosecution of over VND1.92 trillion in line with the indictment of the Supreme People's Procuracy, not over VND252 billion. The fact that the Court calculates the losses at the time of committing the crime did not determine the nature of the case.