Luong Duy Hanh, head of Environmental Protection and Control Department, talked to DTiNews about the possible criminal offences at Hung Hiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Limited Company in relation to the mass fish deaths.

Luong Duy Hanh, head of Environmental Protection and Control Department

The Vietnam Environment Administration inspected Formosa Ha Tinh earlier this year and concluded that there were no violations. Then later, the mass fish deaths occurred and the inspection team led by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment reported that they detected up to 53 violations. What do you think about this?

I was the head of the inspection team of Vietnam Environment Administration. During that time, many contractors, including Samsung and POSCO, were building the complex. Each contractor built a part of the complex. Only the complex's power had completed and was being tested. We also detected the oil leak on May 4 and 5 last year. However, this case was taken over by Ha Tinh Police so we didn't follow it up.

According to the law on environmental protection and government regulations, owners of the sources of waste are those who own or operate the facilities that generate waste. In the contracts, Formosa's contractors must take responsibility for the waste at their construction sites and register with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Formosa Ha Tinh was responsible for the waste generated in their registered area which was judged to be 175kg per year. During our inspection, Formosa only had 98 kilos of toxic waste. Formosa claimed that the contractors must also take responsibility for not classifying and labelling toxic waste.

We discussed this with the Department of Natural Resource and Environment and concluded that we couldn't punish Formosa. After that, Formosa transferred the toxic waste to An Duong Company, member of the Urban Environment One Member Limited Company. Even though the later inspection by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment ended with 53 violations, Formosa claimed that those were due to the contractor.

We’re gathering opinions from the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People's Procuracy and the Supreme People's Court to see how many of the violations were committed by Formosa and how many were the contractors' faults.

How often did you work with Formosa during last year’s inspection?

We met directly and worked with them seven or eight times.

Had the pollution occurred when the Vietnam Environment Administration announced the inspection's results?

They started discharging waste around that time but the amount was small. The toxic waste water increased in March when the factory discharged 1,200 cubic metres a day. The conclusion of the first inspection is not wrong, it was right in terms of the June to September 2015 period, when the complex was still incomplete.

Bui Cach Tuyen, former deputy director of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said inspectors and agencies must take responsibility for not uncovering Formosa's waste discharging activities. What do you think?

I only gave my opinion about that particular inspection. I think there have been a lot of subjective opinions published in newspapers but we have to answer them based on the actual legal situation. We fulfilled our duties and concluded that the violations were committed by contractors, if we punished the Formosa, they would sue us.

When the mass fish death hit the news and Formosa asked to extend the pilot programme, we thought something was wrong and reported that there should be another inspection. We detected suspicious signs and proposed to establish an inspection team with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. That's when the 53 violations were announced.

We asked the minister to review the amount of waste and seize all documents to find evidence to develop the compensation case against Formosa. The whereabouts of 522,000 cubic metres of waste was unknown. The documents were doctored.

Most of the violations were administrative issues. Six violations indicate signs of criminal offences. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has transferred the documents to the Ministry of Public Security.