Police has proposed prosecuting four more officials for embezzlement in the Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) corruption case.

No 83M floating dock

The offenders are Tran Hai Son, director general of Vinalines Ship-Repairing Company, Tran Van Quang, head of Vinalines Ship-Repairing Company’s planning department, Tran Ba Hung, an officer at Hyundai Vinashin Shipyard, and Pham Ba Giap, director of the Nguyen An Company. They were arrested last May.

In 2007, former Chairman of Vinalines Duong Chi Dung approved the USD14.1 million purchase the No 83M floating dock to Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

In reality only USD9 million were used to buy a damaged dock, which had been taken off the list for active service by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. USD6.1 million was spent to hire Huyndai Vinashin Company and other units to repair the dock. However, after using all of the money, No 83M was still unfit. 

Tran Van Quang and other offenders reported higher prices and damages to earn VND3.3 billion profit (USD158,000) from the state budget.

The four have been arrested and accused of embezzlement and violating economic rules.

Duong Chi Dung fled before the investigative agency decided to arrest and prosecute him on May 17, 2012. However, he was caught in October last year in another Southeast Asian country and extradited to Vietnam by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).

The police also prosecuted 13 other related offenders.

Vinalines is the largest shipping line and the largest port operator in Vietnam. From 2006 to 2010, Vinalines spent VND20 trillion ($961 million) to expand its fleet by nearly one million deadweight tonnes, increasing its total transportation capacity to about 2.9 million deadweight tonnes. This was 300,000dwt more than in the plan approved by the government during 2006-2010.