'The defendant is capable of remedying all the consequences'

On December 27, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court continued the first-instance trial of defendants Hoa Cong Hau (former Director of the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health), Le Thanh Lu (former Deputy Head of the General Planning Department of the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health) and Hoang Thi Thuy Nga (Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of NSJ Company) and 11 accomplices for the crimes of Violating bidding regulations causing serious consequences and Lack of responsibility causing serious consequences.

In court, defendant Nga stated that in October 2017, she met the Director of the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health at a conference. At that time, the Department of Health did not have a need to purchase a CT scanner.

When she learned that Tay Ninh Provincial Hospital wanted to buy this type of machine, defendant Nga went to see Le Thanh Lu and said that the company distributed this equipment and asked to approach and supply it.

NSJ Chairman admitted to giving gifts to the Director of the Department of Health because the company had a policy of giving Tet gifts to partners, but denied giving 1 billion VND.

Defendant Hoang Thi Thuy Nga. (Photo: Hoang Tho)

Defendant Nga said she was willing to remedy all the consequences of the case according to the court's ruling and did not ask any defendant to be held jointly responsible because, according to her, all of her assets that were being seized were enough to remedy.

" The defendant's seized assets are capable of remedying all the consequences," defendant Nga said.

Defendant Hau admitted that after NSJ Company won the bid, defendant Nga sent private gifts three times through NSJ Company employees with a total value of 1 billion VND. The entire amount was returned by Mr. Hau's family.

" Ms. Nga met the defendant when the machine purchase policy had not been approved, and there was no agreement on what benefits the winning bidder would receive. However, the defendant later received gifts three times. Ms. Nga had her employees bring them instead of giving them directly, including one billion VND in cash, " defendant Hau stated.

Defendant Lu also admitted to receiving 3 gift baskets from Ms. Nga's company 3 times, including cakes, candies... and 600 million VND.

According to the indictment, when he was the Director of the Tay Ninh Department of Health, Mr. Hau directed and directly signed documents requesting purchase approval and organized bidding to buy CT scanners for Tay Ninh General Hospital. Mr. Hau was determined to be the person responsible before the law during the bidding process and contractor selection.

Hoang Thi Thuy Nga knew that the Tay Ninh Provincial Department of Health needed to equip the provincial hospital with a 128-slice CT Scanner system, so in July 2017 she met Mr. Hau, introduced her company distributing this equipment and asked to be supplied. Mr. Hau knew that Nga had relationships with many leaders and had won many bids for medical equipment packages in the provinces, so he agreed.

Mr. Hau directed Mr. Le Thanh Lu to advise him to sign a document to send to the Provincial People's Committee to designate the purchase of the 128 CT Scanner system, of which NSJ Company is the official distributor in Tay Ninh province.

Next, Mr. Hau directed Lu to sign a document to send to the Provincial People's Committee to designate the purchase of equipment distributed by a Russian company. During the process of preparing the bidding documents, the Director of the Tay Ninh Department of Health directed his subordinates to process the documents to create an advantage for NSJ to win the bid.

After the Department Director agreed to help, Ms. Nga directed her staff to approach the Department of Health to persuade them to choose the equipment provided by her company; and prepared bidding documents on behalf of many "blue team" companies participating. In fact, the parties agreed to let NSJ win the bid.

The authorities concluded that the value of the camera provided by NSJ was more than 14 billion VND. Therefore, the defendants' actions caused damage to state assets of more than 13 billion VND.

From 2018 to 2020, although there was no prior promise or agreement, Mr. Hau received gifts from NSJ Company three times with a total amount of 1 billion VND. After the incident was exposed, Mr. Hau returned this amount.

However, Ms. Nga did not admit to giving gifts and money to the investor and related parties. The "blue team" contractors said that they agreed to help NSJ Company out of respect and wanted to maintain the partnership, not to receive material benefits.

Ms. Nga was the Deputy General Director of AIC Company, then Chairwoman of the Board of Founders of NSJ Group and established 7 companies operating in many fields, assigning subordinates to be legal entities. In fact, Ms. Nga invested capital and managed all activities.

In addition to this case, the total sentence of the People's Court of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Quang Ninh province, Ms. Nga must serve a total sentence of 30 years in prison (the highest sentence of a fixed-term prison sentence) for violating bidding and giving bribes at: AIC and Dong Nai Department of Health, Can Tho Department of Health, Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province.

Hoang Tho

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