Two former Deputy General Directors of VEC Expressway Construction Company appear in court

The trial, chaired by Judge Vu Quang Huy, is expected to last for a month, including working on weekends and holidays, with the participation of more than 60 lawyers. Nearly 50 people involved were summoned, including representatives of the Ministry of Transport, representatives of the State Acceptance Inspection Council, appraisers and several other individuals involved at VEC.

Mr. Le Quang Hao (left) and Nguyen Manh Hung, Deputy General Director of VEC when arrested. Photo: Provided by the police

The Da Nang - Quang Ngai Expressway Project, invested by VEC, has a total length of more than 139 km, from Da Nang city to Quang Ngai city (Quang Ngai province), and started construction on May 19, 2013. Phase I is 65 km long, from Da Nang city to Tam Ky city (Quang Nam province), including 8 main construction packages, including 7 road construction packages and one main bridge construction package.

Projectusing loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency - JICA (for phase 1), loans from the World Bank - WB (for phase 2) and counterpart funds from the Vietnamese Government, totaling more than 69,000 billion VND.

On August 1, 2017, the project opened to traffic and put into operation phase I. On September 2, 2018, phase II with 74.2 km from Tam Ky city to Quang Ngai city was put into operation.

According to the indictment, after only 2 years, 1 month and 5 days of being put into use, the 65 km road had 380 visible defects on the asphalt concrete surface. The appraisal conclusion showed that all 7 packages (road sections) in phase I did not ensure quality according to technical standards and design requirements...

The Da Nang - Quang Ngai Expressway has 380 broken points after only 2 years, 1 month and 5 days of being put into use. Photo: Dac Thanh

During the construction and acceptance process, the relevant parties did not measure the road surface strength on the completed material layers, did not measure the permeability coefficient of the roughened asphalt concrete layer to evaluate the quality of the construction project after construction. This led to the failure to control the quality of the construction project items, but the acceptance was signed and the project was proposed to be put into operation.

The damage was determined to be the value of construction items that did not meet quality standards in the bid packages, but were accepted by the Investor and related units, and more than VND 811 billion was paid to the Contractors, an amount assessed as "particularly large".

The investigation agency accused Deputy General Director Hung of not having a solution to inspect and control construction quality, leading to the items not being accepted according to regulations when completed; the quality of the project was not guaranteed but payment documents were signed... His actions caused a loss of more than 422 billion VND. When working with the investigation agency, Mr. Hung denied responsibility and said that the project management board, supervision consultant, construction contractor and VEC board of members were involved in this. Regarding defendant Hao, the authorities accused him of not complying with technical standards and project design requirements; organizing the construction of items but not having a solution to inspect and control quality, not having acceptance documents... His actions caused a loss of more than 389 billion VND.

The Da Nang - Quang Ngai Expressway case is one of five major cases that the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption and Negativity requested to be urgently tried at first instance.