Minister Tran Hong Ha: Taiwanese public opinion supports the Vietnamese Government in strictly handling Formosa

(Baonghean.vn)- Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha affirmed that the strict handling of Formosa's behavior received the consensus of domestic and international public opinion.

At the regular Government meeting in June, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha reported on the process of handling environmental pollution incidents in the central sea.

In April 2016, in four provinces in Central Vietnam, including Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien Hue, a serious environmental incident occurred, causing mass deaths of seafood, causing serious damage to the economy, society, and marine environment, negatively affecting people's lives.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha (center) chaired a press conference announcing the cause of fish deaths.

Immediately after receiving information about the incident, Party and State leaders, directly the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Ministers, resolutely directed ministries, departments, branches and localities to promptly deploy measures to support and stabilize the lives of people in the affected areas, maintain social order and safety, and initially assess economic, social and environmental damage; at the same time, directed ministries, branches and agencies to be cautious, accurate, scientific, objective and in accordance with the law to determine and clarify the cause and the subject causing the incident in order to take measures to handle it.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has presided over and coordinated with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology and related ministries and branches to collect data and samples and send them to domestic and foreign scientific agencies for data analysis. With the assessment and criticism of international scientists, it has been determined that a large amount of waste originating from the Vung Ang area of ​​Ha Tinh province contains phenol and cyanide toxins combined with iron hydroxide to form a mixture with a density greater than seawater, following the ocean current moving north-south from Ha Tinh province to Thua Thien Hue, which is the cause of mass deaths of seafood and marine life, causing damage to the bottom.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has presided over and coordinated with relevant ministries and localities to organize a review and re-identification with the participation of ministries, departments, and leading scientific experts and determined that Formosa Hung Nghiep Company Limited (abbreviated as FHS) had committed a number of violations, and identified incidents that occurred during the operation of the wastewater treatment system into the sea containing phenol and cyanide toxins that exceeded the permissible level many times.

From the above evidence, relevant ministries and agencies have carefully assessed and consulted domestic and foreign scientists to determine that the discharge of waste from the Formosa Ha Tinh factory is the cause of serious marine pollution, causing unusual deaths of seafood in 4 provinces from Ha Tinh to Thua Thien Hue in the past 4 months.

Based on objective and scientific evidence, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, in coordination with relevant ministries, branches and localities, has worked many times with Formosa Ha Tinh Group.

On June 28, 2016, Formosa Ha Tinh Company accepted responsibility for causing the environmental incident that caused mass seafood deaths in 4 provinces from Ha Tinh to Thua Thien Hue recently, and committed to:

1. Publicly apologize to the Government and people of Vietnam for the serious incident.

2. Provide economic compensation to people and support career conversion, compensation for pollution treatment and restoration of the marine environment with an amount of nearly 11,500 billion VND (equivalent to 500 million USD)

3. Thoroughly overcome the shortcomings and limitations of the waste and wastewater treatment system, perfect the production technology to ensure the thorough treatment of toxic waste before discharging into the environment according to the requirements of state management agencies, the Central Government and Ha Tinh province, to prevent the recurrence of environmental incidents as happened.

4. Coordinate with Vietnamese ministries, branches and central provinces to develop synchronous solutions to ensure pollution prevention and control, and prevent similar environmental incidents from occurring, to create trust with Vietnamese people and international friends.

5. Fully and correctly implement the above commitments, not to repeat violations of environmental protection and water resources protection. Violations will be subject to sanctions according to Vietnamese law.

The recent environmental incident has greatly affected the lives and production and business of people in the Central provinces. The Prime Minister requested relevant ministries, branches and localities to continue to urgently and synchronously deploy solutions, implement measures to compensate for damages, support job conversion for people in accordance with regulations, ensure publicity, transparency, close to reality, with the participation of the people and the Vietnam Fatherland Front in monitoring. Deploy and install a marine environmental monitoring system in 4 provinces. Focus on and implement the treatment of polluted marine environment, focus on economic development, create all favorable conditions for investment and business, protect the legitimate interests of people and businesses. Strengthening the maintenance of security and social order, protecting the peaceful life of the people, not allowing bad guys and reactionary organizations to take advantage, strictly handling violations, having solutions to ensure social security, clarifying responsibilities and strictly handling organizations and individuals who commit violations related to environmental incidents in the Central provinces.

The Government highly appreciates and thanks the attention and sympathy of people at home and abroad, especially the people of the four central provinces, the efforts and determination of scientists, the leadership of the Politburo, the Central Party Secretariat, the timely involvement and coordination of Party committees, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, political organizations, local ministries, branches, press agencies, and the support of international organizations in handling the environmental incident. At the same time, it welcomes the attitude and public opinion of Taiwan supporting the Vietnamese Government in strictly handling violations, and requests Formosa to cooperate in handling the incident.

Through the above environmental incident, local ministries and sectors must continue to enhance their responsibility and state management capacity, perfect the legal system, strengthen inspection, supervision and monitoring of law enforcement, and meet the requirements of international integration and sustainable growth. This is also a lesson for businesses in the investment process to strictly comply with regulations, including environmental protection factors./.

An Nhan - Hoai Thu - Canh Nam