Receiving a 'kickback' of 1 billion VND, former Director of the Department of Health appeared in court

On December 27, the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City opened the first instance trial of defendants Hoa Cong Hau (former Director of the Department of Health of Tay Ninh province), Le Thanh Lu (former Deputy Head of the General Planning Department of the Department of Health of Tay Ninh province) and Hoang Thi Thuy Nga (Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of NSJ Company) and 11 accomplices for the crimes of "Violating regulations on bidding causing serious consequences" and "Lack of responsibility causes serious consequences".

The trial was opened as assigned by the Supreme People’s Court, scheduled to last for 3 days, from November 27-29. Nearly 20 lawyers defended the defendants. In addition to the victim, the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health, the court also summoned 30 people with related rights and obligations; including the Tay Ninh Provincial People’s Committee and the Provincial General Hospital.

According to the indictment, when he was the Director of the Tay Ninh Department of Health, Mr. Hau directed and directly signed documents requesting purchase approval and organized bidding to buy CT scanners for Tay Ninh Provincial General Hospital. Mr. Hau was determined to be the person responsible before the law during the bidding process and contractor selection.

Knowing that the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health had a need to equip the provincial hospital with a 128-slice CT Scanner system, in July 2017, Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy Nga met Mr. Hau, introduced her company distributing this equipment and asked to be provided. Mr. Hau knew that Ms. Nga had relationships with many leaders and had won many bids for medical equipment packages in the provinces, so he agreed.

Mr. Hau directed Mr. Le Thanh Lu to advise him to sign a document to send to the Provincial People's Committee to designate the purchase of the 128 CT Scanner system, of which NSJ Company is the official distributor in Tay Ninh province.

During the process of preparing the bidding documents, Mr. Hau assigned Mr. Lu, representing the Department of Health, to be the Head of the Bidding Documents Evaluation Team, working with Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Thien (the consulting unit for preparing the bidding documents) to create advantages for NSJ Company to win the bid and gain illegal profits. This caused a loss of more than 13 billion VND to the State.

Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy Nga in court.

From 2018 to 2020, although there was no prior promise or agreement, Mr. Hau received gifts from NSJ Company 3 times with a total amount of 1 billion VND. After the incident broke out, Mr. Hau returned this amount.

The accusation is that Ms. Nga took advantage of her relationships with many local government leaders to influence the project. Ms. Nga also built internal procedures and regulations as a basis for company employees to coordinate the implementation of steps in the bidding process, from requesting policies, approving estimates, organizing bidding, and implementing installation acceptance contracts.

Ms. Nga colluded with Mr. Hau and directly directed employees to collude with the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health in preparing purchasing documents, organizing bidding to select contractors, creating advantages for NSJ Company to win the bid for the procurement package of the 128-slice CT Scanner system.

Ms. Nga directed her subordinates to prepare bidding documents for the "blue team" and then assigned employees to submit them on her behalf and participate in the bid opening at the Department of Health, creating conditions for NSJ Company to win the bid, illegally profit, causing losses to the State of more than 13 billion VND.