Secretary and Chairman of the district lend money to build new rural areas with interest

Former secretary and chairman of Phuoc Long district, Bac Lieu lent Phuoc Long district billions to build new rural areas and earn interest.

Transaction documents for money transfers from Phuoc Long district budget to the accounts of leaders and their family members of Phuoc Long district - Photo: T. Trinh

The Inspection Committee of Bac Lieu Provincial Party Committee has concluded the inspection of signs of violations against Mr. Tran Hoang Duyen and Mr. Phan Thanh Dong (Chairman of the District People's Committee) and Mr. Lam Thanh Sao (Deputy Secretary of the District Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Council of Phuoc Long District, formerly Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Phuoc Long District). The consequence of the hasty construction of the new rural area by the district leaders caused this locality to owe 400 billion VND by the end of 2015.

chasing after achievements

Immediately after being selected, due to haste and chasing after achievements, Phuoc Long District Party Committee and People's Committee immediately started massive construction of works serving the new rural areas and not long after that Phuoc Long District became a big debtor to contractors and construction material sales establishments... According to the conclusion of the Bac Lieu Provincial Party Committee's Inspection Committee, there were many things that "thought very unlikely to happen" but still happened.

For example, there are many projects that have not yet balanced capital or allocated capital, but the district has allowed contractors to advance capital for construction. There are even projects that are under construction but have run out of capital, but Mr. Duyen still directed them to continue to start new projects. This is considered the reason why the outstanding debt of basic construction is increasing rapidly.

Specifically, in 2013, the outstanding debt was about 124 billion VND, the following year it increased to more than 211 billion VND and by the end of 2015, this figure was nearly 400 billion VND. Mr. Tran Hoang Duyen personally directed the advance payment of the budget to pay for the purchase of construction materials by deferred payment method, especially the purchase without competitive bidding. By the end of 2015, the amount of money spent on purchasing materials in this form had reached more than 70 billion VND, currently owing more than 4.6 billion VND to the units selling the materials.

“Commenting” on the inspection conclusion of the Bac Lieu Provincial Party Committee’s Inspection Committee, an official who is a former member of the Phuoc Long District Party Committee’s Standing Committee (term 2010-2015) said that in 2013-2014, District Party Committee Secretary Tran Hoang Duyen only reported to the District Party Committee’s Standing Committee that he owed about 136 billion VND, while other sources such as selling public land, support from enterprises, capital from national target programs, capital from the province supporting the construction of new rural areas... were enough to repay the debt.

Therefore, the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee decided to continue implementing the policy. "After this policy was issued, they (Mr. Duyen, Mr. Dong and Mr. Sao) operated and did not report to the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee anymore," said this official.

Phuoc Long District (Bac Lieu) is one of the localities that has spent too much money on new rural construction, leading to bankruptcy. In the photo: the road in Hung Phu commune has many bridges under construction because... of lack of capital - Photo: Chi Quoc

District leaders lend billions

Due to mounting debt, by mid-2015, thousands of teachers and civil servants in the district had not received their salaries for months due to a lack of money in the budget. However, during that time, money from the budget was still being spent regularly for the district but was... transferred to the personal accounts and relatives of many district leaders.

Specifically, he transferred nearly 11.717 billion VND to Mr. Tran Hoang Duyen and his wife many times; transferred over 5.5 billion VND to Mr. Lam Thanh Sao (at that time, Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee), and transferred 1.4 billion VND to Mr. Phan Thanh Dong's account...

Mr. Tran Hoang Duyen admitted to the above transactions and explained: the reason why budget money flowed into his account was because "I had previously lent the district to build the new rural area". At one point, the amount of money Mr. Duyen lent the district was up to 13,450 billion VND.

Regarding the loan amount, Mr. Duyen said that he has recovered 11.7 billion VND so far, meaning that Phuoc Long district still owes Mr. Duyen and his family 2 billion VND. Of which, the interest Mr. Duyen earned was 267 million VND. Not only Mr. Duyen, many leaders of this district also lent money to the district budget for the NTM project.

Mr. Lam Thanh Sao "lent" the district budget 5.3 billion VND, and when the books were "closed", the interest Mr. Sao received was 216 million VND. The person who lent the least amount of money to the budget among the leaders of Phuoc Long district was Chairman of the People's Committee of the district Phan Thanh Dong: lent 1.4 billion VND, took 80 million VND in interest.

Mr. Lam Thanh Sao explained: he only takes interest on the money he lends to the district according to the bank's interest rate.

“At that time, I had idle money but the budget was tight and there were many salary debts. It would be strange if I didn’t lend them money. That was the case at that time, but I was a party member, if I did something wrong, I would have to accept the punishment from the party and my superiors,” said Mr. Sao.

According to the conclusion of the Provincial Party Committee's Inspection Committee, the interest rate here is based on the lending interest rate.

No new projects

Mr. Dang Tien Ut - Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee, Secretary of Phuoc Long District Party Committee - said that at the time he took office (late 2015), the district owed teachers and civil servants more than four months' salary with a total amount of about 100 billion VND, in addition to over 200 billion VND in basic construction debt. He directed the district's Finance Department to focus on immediately resolving the "hot spot" of salary debt for teachers, civil servants and policy beneficiaries. Thanks to that, the hot issue of salary debt for salaried workers has cooled down.

However, Mr. Ut said that so far, only 32 billion VND has been paid to businesses. The remaining debt for basic construction is about 200 billion VND, "will try to resolve it completely this year or at the latest next year". To do this, according to Mr. Ut, all new basic construction projects and works must be temporarily stopped, those that are unfinished will try to complete, no new projects will be done.

Regarding the direction to completely resolve the remaining outstanding debts of basic construction, Mr. Ut said that in addition to the solution of not building new projects as mentioned above, the province will also provide capital advances and at the same time prioritize recording more annual capital for Phuoc Long to gradually pay back to businesses.