Former General Director of Vietsovpetro Tu Thanh Nghia (Photo: tienphong.vn)Hanoi (VNA) – The Supreme People’s Procuracy hasprosecuted Tu Thanh Nghia, former General Director of the Vietnam-Russia oiland gas joint venture Vietsovpetro, for “abusing position and power toappropriate assets”.
Aside from Nghia (born in 1962), former chief accountantof the firm Vo Quang Huy (born in 1961) also faces the same charge, which isunder Article 355 of the 2015 Penal Code.
According to the indictment, Vietsovpetro beganusing the payment account services of and had some fixed-term deposit contractswith the Ocean Commercial Joint Stock Bank (OceanBank) in 2008.
By 2009, it had had many fixed-term depositcontracts and often maintained a large payment account balance at the OceanBankbranch in Vung Tau city. This was in line with the direction of the VietnamNational Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) – which represents the VietnameseGovernment in contributing 51 percent (or 765 million USD) of Vietsovpetro’scharter capital – regarding the prioritisation of using financial services ofOceanBank, to which PetroVietnam contributed 20 percent of the chartercapital.
Meanwhile, then Chairman of the Board ofDirectors of OceanBank Ha Van Tham ordered that extra-interest which was notstated in contracts be paid to all clients who had deposited money at the bank.
From 2013 to 2014, then Director General ofOceanBank Nguyen Minh Thu received money sent from the OceanBank headquartersthrough other people’s accounts at the Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City branchesto pay the extra-interest to Tu Thanh Nghia and Vo Quang Huy.
The Supreme People’s Procuracy said as the thenleaders of Vietsovpetro, Nghia and Huy decided to deposit the business’ moneyat OceanBank and received the money from Thu. While Huy received andappropriated 6.7 billion VND and 130,000 USD, Nghia took 1.5 billion VND and30,000 USD.
The procuracy said there is sufficient basisproving that Nghia and Huy abused positions and power to appropriate assets.–VNA
VNA
