Violations in mineral exploitation, a business was fined nearly 800 million VND

In addition, the company was forced to pay back VND137,748,000 in illegal profits and was suspended from using industrial explosives for two months.

Specifically, the penalty decision No. 54/QD-XPHC dated June 16 clearly stated that Hanoi Gems and Gold Joint Stock Company committed 13 administrative violations, including:

First act: Occupying agricultural land (not rice-growing land, special-use forest land, protective forest land, production forest land) within the administrative boundary of Chau Binh commune. Total area occupied is 1.28 hectares of agricultural land;

Second act: Improperly or incompletely implementing one of the contents of the decision approving the results of the environmental impact assessment report appraisal as prescribed (Specifically: The Company has not built a system of ditches to collect overflowing rainwater; has not built an improved tank (Bastaf) to collect and filter domestic wastewater);

Third act: Arranging the hazardous waste storage area does not meet technical requirements according to regulations (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the hazardous waste storage warehouse does not have compartments, cells, or containers for storing hazardous waste, and does not post codes for hazardous waste types according to regulations);

Fourth act: Not preparing environmental protection reports to send to competent state agencies as prescribed (Specifically: In 2023 and 2024, the Company did not prepare annual periodic environmental reports to send to competent state agencies as prescribed);

Fifth act: Marking the corner points of the area permitted for mineral exploitation but not in accordance with regulations (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the Company had marked the corner points according to the mineral exploitation license, but the markers were not in accordance with regulations (the width and height of the markers were only 10 cm, the prescribed size of the markers is 30 cm);

Sixth act: Not installing a weighing station at the place where raw minerals are transported out of the mine to monitor and store related information (for open-pit mining);

Seventh act: Incompletely preparing books, vouchers, documents, and related materials to determine actual annual mining output (Specifically: In 2023 and 2024, the Company did not prepare a table of results of acceptance of mineral volume according to mining layers using open-pit method; did not prepare a table summarizing statistics of actual annual mining output calculated according to maps, current mine cross-sections; according to statistics of weighing stations and invoices, documents);

Eighth act: Mineral exploitation (except sand and gravel from riverbeds, streams, lakes, estuaries; sand and gravel in coastal inland waters) with a total exploited area exceeding the boundary of the permitted exploitation area (on the surface) to less than 0.1 ha (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the Mineral Exploitation Company exceeded the licensed boundary granted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (now the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment) to the East of the mining area (adjacent to landmark No. 4) with an area of ​​exploitation exceeding the licensed boundary of 626 m²);

Ninth act: Failure to submit approved mine design to the competent state management agency on minerals (Specifically: The Company did not submit approved mine design to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (now the Department of Agriculture and Environment), the Department of Construction and the Department of Industry and Trade as prescribed);

Tenth act: Blasting passport with incomplete content (Specifically: (1) The passport lacks the content "Based on the approved Blasting Plan"; (2) During the process of preparing the blasting passport, the company did not record the content in section XI - Technical safety measures);

Eleventh act: Failure to carry out procedures for importing and exporting industrial explosives and explosive precursors at the industrial explosives and explosive precursors warehouse (Specifically: From October 2024 until the time of inspection, the Company did not carry out procedures for importing and exporting industrial explosives and explosive precursors at the industrial explosives warehouse);

Twelfth act: Failure to periodically check the lightning protection system as prescribed by law (Specifically: During the use of the industrial explosives warehouse, the Company did not periodically measure the resistance of the lightning protection column at the industrial explosives warehouse);

Thirteenth act: Not developing measures to prevent and respond to chemical incidents at the Industrial Explosives warehouse but still putting the project into operation (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the Company did not develop measures to prevent and respond to chemical incidents at the Industrial Explosives warehouse but still put the project into operation).