Former director of Tien Giang CDC who received ‘kickbacks’ from Viet A was exempted from punishment

After a day of trial, on the afternoon of April 25, the People’s Court of Tien Giang province exempted the defendants from punishment: Nguyen Ngoc Chon (Former director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of Tien Giang province) and 3 accomplices including : Vo Thanh Binh (former head of CDC Tien Giang Testing Department), Trieu Vuong Tuyen (pharmacist) and Dang Minh Uy (Testing Department employee) on charges of violating bidding regulations causing serious consequences.

Regarding the civil part, the amount of damage to the state budget of more than 7 billion VND was resolved in the first instance criminal judgment No. 29 dated January 12, 2024 of the Hanoi People’s Court, so the jury did not consider it.

The jury declared confiscation to state funds of more than 2 billion VND that the defendants received from Viet A Company.

Advance the testing and then legalize the bidding documents

The jury said that during the investigation process and at the trial, the defendants honestly confessed, repented, had excellent achievements in their work and in preventing the COVID-19 epidemic, and voluntarily returned the money ” kickbacks”, families who contributed to the revolution…

Considering that the defendant had many circumstances that mitigated his criminal liability, the jury pronounced the sentence as above.

In this case, former director Tien Giang CDC Nguyen Ngoc Chon and three accomplices are accused of having prepared legal procedures for the entire bidding documents with the aim of letting Viet A Company win the contract.

Specifically, CDC Tien Giang purchased a total of 31,680 Tests from Viet A Company for 367,500 VND/Test.

However, based on experimental investigation documents, documents verifying the price of input materials, production process and productivity of Viet A Company’s testing provided by the Police Investigation Agency of the Ministry of Public Security, we determined the basis Test price structure produced by Viet A Company is 143,461 VND/Test.

The above violations by former Tien Giang CDC officials caused a loss of more than 7 billion VND to the budget.

After CDC Tien Giang paid for the bidding package to Viet A, the defendants received “kickbacks” from Viet A of more than 2 billion VND. Of which, Chon received 450 million VND; Tuyen received 420 million VND; Binh received 375 million VND; Uy received 782 million VND.

When Viet A was investigated, she did not dare to return the “gift” money for fear of being arrested

During the questioning in court, defendant Chon admitted that he made a mistake by not organizing bidding and selecting contractors according to regulations.

The defendant said that, due to the time of the COVID-19 epidemic, the procurement of equipment and chemicals to deploy testing for epidemic prevention was very urgent and there was pressure from superiors’ direction on epidemic prevention.

With the responsibility of being the head of Tien Giang CDC, the defendant only thought about how to have the fastest and fastest test, so the defendant directed Tuyen to advance more than 9,900 tests from Viet A to use first.

After signing payment for the bidding package for Viet A, defendant Chon admitted to receiving a “kickback” from Viet A Company of 450 million VND at a coffee shop in My Tho City.

The court asked defendant Chon what he thought when receiving “kickbacks” from Viet A? Defendant Chon replied: “At that time, the defendant didn’t think anything, he only thought it was a gift. About 4 months later, when he learned that Viet A was being prosecuted, the defendant was afraid that if he returned the money, he would be arrested, so he remained silent and waited to see what the situation would be. It wasn’t until CDC Tien Giang was investigated that the defendant returned the above amount.”

In this case, Tuyen was an accomplice in the role of practitioner, directly legalizing the entire bidding documents. Binh and Uy committed the crime as assistants.

In court, defendants Tuyen, Binh, and Uy all said that they found it unusual to receive “gifts” of hundreds of millions of dong from Viet A and keep them for a long time until the case was investigated.

From June 6, 2022 to June 9, 2022, all 4 defendants came to the Investigation Agency to report and ask to return the above “kickback” money.