Using football field renovation as cover to exploit resources
A contractor took advantage of being hired to renovate a soccer field and openly scooped up thousands of truckloads of dirt, selling it to local residents to pocket hundreds of millions of dong. Believing that the contractor was making too much profit, the locals refused to pay the neighborhood to cover the construction costs.
Unauthorized exploitation of resources
In early September, we were in Huong Chau hamlet, Quy Hop commune. As soon as we arrived at the entrance of the hamlet, many people in Huong Chau hamlet expressed their anger about the story of a contractor who came to exploit land in the hamlet, pocketed hundreds of millions of dong, and then asked people to pay them for their work.
“It’s absurd. They were hired to renovate the football field, but they arbitrarily scooped up thousands of trucks of dirt to sell. The football field has been unusable since the renovation because it was dug too deep, now it’s no different from a rice field,” said Mr. Tran Dang Danh (68 years old), in Huong Chau hamlet.
Huong Chau hamlet formerly belonged to Chau Dinh commune (old), the hamlet is surrounded by fertile rice fields and acacia hills. In which, the football field is more than 4,000m2 wide.2The hamlet is located at the foot of the hill, with a slope that is inconvenient for sports and community activities. Therefore, in early November 2024, Huong Chau hamlet held a meeting to collect opinions, then agreed to hire a contractor to renovate and lower the slope of the football field, and the excess soil will be transported to the fields to make an internal road, creating convenience for people in the hamlet to produce. Huong Chau hamlet has 100 households, all of whom agreed to pay 800,000 VND/household to have funds to hire a contractor to do this work.
"That was a very correct policy, it could be said to kill two birds with one stone, so I remember that at that meeting everyone enthusiastically agreed," Mr. Thanh said.
However, the people of Huong Chau hamlet did not expect that the contractor hired for renovation would take advantage of this to dig deep into the soccer field, exploiting thousands of truckloads of soil to sell for profit. Ms. Che Thi Lan - Secretary of the Party Cell of Huong Chau hamlet said that right after the meeting, Mr. Dang Quoc Huy - at that time the Head of Huong Chau hamlet called Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh - Director of a company headquartered in Chau Quang commune, Quy Hop district (old) to bring machinery to renovate the soccer field. "Mr. Huy hired Mr. Thanh to renovate the soccer field without going through the Party Committee, the hamlet executive committee, and there was no contract. But that was not too big of a deal. However, Mr. Thanh excavated less soil to build roads and more soil to sell," Ms. Lan said.
According to Ms. Lan, the hamlet initially agreed to lower the soccer field by about 60cm, taking the excess soil to raise and fill the internal roads. But Mr. Thanh let the excavator dig nearly 2 meters deeper than the old ground level, most of the excess soil was transported by truck to be sold. "I went out to check and saw that they were digging so deep, not in accordance with the hamlet's plan, so I asked Mr. Thanh to stop many times, but he refused, saying he was only following the orders of Mr. Huy, the hamlet chief," Ms. Lan added.
Just like that, Mr. Thanh noisily scooped up soil to sell, until the hamlet's soccer field was so deep that no more could be scooped up. However, at this time, the soil was gone, but the intra-field roads had not been completed. "There was no more soil from the soccer field to take, so at that time, the hamlet chief Huy told Mr. Thanh to go to the area near the hamlet cemetery to scoop up soil to complete the intra-field roads. During the process of taking soil near the cemetery, Mr. Thanh also took advantage of the opportunity to scoop up more soil to sell, hundreds of truckloads," said the Party Secretary of Huong Chau hamlet.
Need to clarify signs of violation
By the end of December, when this project was completed, Huong Chau hamlet held a congress to elect a new hamlet chief. In which, Mr. Nguyen Ba Hai was elected to replace Mr. Dang Quoc Huy. Mr. Hai said that after that, the new hamlet executive committee also organized an acceptance of the project and asked Mr. Thanh to provide a contract as a basis for collecting money from households, but Mr. Huy and Mr. Thanh both replied that there was no contract.
“A while later, Mr. Huy and Mr. Thanh brought the contract, dated November 20, 2024, to make it legal for the new hamlet executive committee to collect money. Because initially, the hamlet agreed to collect 800,000 VND from each household to pay Mr. Thanh for the cost of renovating the soccer field,” Mr. Hai said. However, after that, although Huong Chau hamlet organized a series of meetings to announce the collection of money, most of them did not agree. The people requested that Mr. Thanh deduct 50 million VND from the total amount of money from selling the land to add to the hamlet fund.
“It’s true that at first we agreed to pay 800,000 VND per household to renovate the soccer field and upgrade the internal road, but who allowed him to scoop up the soil and sell it like that? Where did they come from? They scooped up the soil and sold it for more than half a billion VND, what more can they ask for now?”, a resident of Huong Chau hamlet said.
Due to the lack of agreement between the people and Mr. Thanh, the matter dragged on, the households did not pay the hamlet executive committee, the hamlet did not have money to pay Mr. Thanh as agreed between the old hamlet chief and him. In early August, Mr. Thanh filed a complaint against Huong Chau hamlet for embezzling wages. However, in mid-August, when Quy Hop commune invited the Huong Chau hamlet executive committee and Mr. Thanh to come up to resolve the complaint, Mr. Thanh was absent, so the matter has not been resolved to date.
Talking to reporters, Mr. Dang Quoc Huy - former Hamlet Chief of Huong Chau Hamlet admitted that he hired Mr. Thanh to construct the project for the hamlet. "Before I retired as hamlet chief, the project was completed but the money had not been collected, so I handed it over to the new hamlet executive committee to be responsible for collecting money from the people to pay Mr. Thanh. But now, the new hamlet executive committee refuses to collect the money. As for Mr. Thanh scooping up land to sell to the people, that is Mr. Thanh's business, I have nothing to do with it," Mr. Huy said.
Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh said that initially, he agreed with the construction neighborhood that after 1 month of work, the neighborhood would pay him 80 million VND for labor, but until now, he has not paid, so he complained. Regarding the fact that he took advantage of the football field renovation to scoop up soil to sell to the people, Mr. Thanh said that this was not a sale, but that the people only paid to support fuel costs. "For each truckload of soil, I only took 150,000 VND as support. During the process, there was a little extra soil so I gave it to the people, it was not significant," Mr. Thanh said.
Meanwhile, according to the reporter's investigation, in Huong Chau hamlet alone, nearly 20 households have confirmed spending money to buy more than 2,200 trucks of soil from Mr. Thanh to raise their gardens and fill in ponds. Each truck is about 4.5m.3The land was sold by Mr. Thanh for 220,000 VND. With a total of more than 2,200 cars sold to the people of Huong Chau hamlet alone, Mr. Thanh pocketed hundreds of millions of VND.
Mr. Truong Duc Thanh (66 years old), one of the land buyers, said that at that time, Hamlet Chief Dang Quoc Huy and Mr. Thanh announced that any household who wanted to buy land to raise their garden should register through the Hamlet Chief or contact Mr. Thanh directly. “At first, we saw that they offered a price of 220,000 VND per truck, which was expensive, but because we needed land to fill the pond, I registered. I bought a total of 464 trucks of soil from Mr. Thanh, which he had dug up from the football field. He gave me 4 trucks less, so I only paid for 460 trucks. I gave that money directly to Mr. Thanh, but I don’t know who pocketed it, and I don’t know if anyone allowed them to exploit the land for sale,” Mr. Thanh said.
Sharing with reporters, the people of Huong Chau hamlet said that they have just submitted a collective petition to clarify this matter. “We request the competent authority to clarify the legal basis for the government to allow an individual to exploit land resources, who made the decision to allow exploitation? Was Mr. Thanh personally licensed to exploit land resources? Where is the money collected from selling football field land and cemetery land in Huong Chau hamlet? Who is managing it? If no one gives permission, then the act of exploiting land resources must be strictly handled,” the petition of the collective of Huong Chau hamlet stated.
