Defendants Tất Thành Cang (front, right) and Tề Chí Dũng (front, left) at a court trial that began on December 27 in HCM City. — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The HCM City People’s Court yesterday began the trial of a former permanent vice secretary of HCM City’s Party Committee and his accomplices for “violations of regulations on the management and use of State assets, causing losses and wastefulness” under the 2015 Penal Code.

Tất Thành Cang, former vice secretary of the HCM City Party Committee; Phạm Văn Thông, former deputy chief of the Office of the municipal Party Committee; and Tề Trí Dũng, former general director of Tân Thuận Industrial Promotion Company Ltd (IPC), chairman of the Board of Directors of Sadeco; and other defendants have been prosecuted for violating regulations on management and use of state assets, causing loss, waste and embezzlement of property at IPC and the State-owned real estate company South Saigon Development JSC (Sadeco). 

If convicted, the jail term would be 10 to 20 years. 

Cang, Thông, Dũng and other defendants were assigned to manage the State’s assets and carry out the State’s regulations on the presentation of State capital at enterprises.

Under Cang’s leadership, the defendants committed a range of violations, including selling 9 million shares of SADECO at the price of VNĐ40,000 per share to the Nguyễn Kim company without bidding, causing a loss VNĐ1.103 trillion for Sadeco. Of the amount, the violations have caused losses of more than VNĐ669.6 billion (US$29.3 million) to the State’s assets.

In addition, Tề Chí Dũng (former general director of the IPC and former chairman of the Board of Directors of Sadeco), Hồ Thị Thanh Phúc (former general director of Sadeco), Đỗ Công Hiệp (former chief accountant of Sadeco) and their accomplices abused their authority in managing remuneration and rewards at Sadeco to illegally spend the money that the company should have paid to the municipal Party Committee’s Office and the IPC. They appropriated more than VNĐ4.6 billion.

Dũng also ordered Phúc and other accessories to spend SADECO’s money illegally on foreign trips for individuals in the name of “fact-finding tours”, causing losses of over VNĐ2.1 billion to the State.

Dũng, Phúc and five others face two charges of “violating regulations on the management and use of State assets, causing losses and wastefulness” and “embezzling assets”.  

Nguyễn Văn Minh, former chairman of the IPC Members’ Council, is accused of “embezzling assets”.

The trial will last until January 10. — VNS