HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has decided to dismiss a senior official from the Việt Nam Environment Administration over his role in the Formosa environmental disaster last year.

This was announced by the ministry on Tuesday.

Lương Duy Hanh, director of the Administration’s Environmental Protection and Control Department, will be dismissed and move to work in another agency.

Hưng Nghiệp Formosa Hà Tĩnh Steel Company in the central province of Hà Tĩnh was responsible for mass fish deaths in the four central provinces of Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Trị, Quảng Bình and Thừa Thiên-Huế Provinces in April last year.

The environmental disaster left hundreds of fish dead and affected the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of locals.

Earlier, the ministry removed Mai Thanh Dung, deputy head of the Vietnam Environment Administration, for not fulfilling his duties relating to this case during his office term as director of the department of environmental impact appraisal and assessment at the ministry.

In February, the Central Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of Việt Nam concluded that from 2008 to 2016, the ministry’s Party Civil Affairs Committee was irresponsible in exercising leadership. In addition, it carried out insufficient inspections and supervision and let infringements occur in the assessment of environmental impact, adjustment of waste water discharge location and State management of the Formosa Hà Tĩnh project.

Responsibility for the offences belongs to former Party Central Committee member, former secretary of the Party Civil Affairs Committee and former environment minister Nguyễn Minh Quang; former Party Civil Affairs Committee member, former deputy minister and former head of the Vietnam Environment Administration Bùi Cách Tuyến; and former Party Civil Affairs Commission member and former deputy minister Nguyễn Thái Lai, who was directly responsible for violations in the fields he was overseeing, according to the commission. — VNS