The court returned the file requesting further investigation.

On January 15, the People's Court of Thua Thien-Hue province opened the first-instance trial of the case of "Violating bidding regulations causing serious consequences" occurring at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of Thua Thien-Hue province.

The defendants brought to trial include: Hoang Van Duc, former Director of CDC Thua Thien-Hue province and Ha Thuc Nhat, former Head of Finance and Planning Department, concurrently Chief Accountant of CDC Thua Thien-Hue province.

According to the indictment, in 2020, the CDC of Thua Thien-Hue province was granted additional budget to purchase medical supplies to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic. During the process of purchasing medical supplies, Hoang Van Duc did not comply with the legal regulations on bidding.

Specifically, Hoang Van Duc did not set up a team of experts to carry out the contractor selection plan. Duc assigned Nhat to directly contact contractors and negotiate in advance the prices of materials and equipment to be purchased without consulting quotes from other contractors in the area.

Defendant Nhat directly drafted documents such as contract negotiations, shortened bidding decisions, etc., and then sent them to Duc for review. Defendant Duc asked relevant officials in the agency, along with the defendant and Nhat, to sign the above documents even though these people were not involved in any stage of the bidding.

According to the investigation conclusion, from March 4, 2020 to September 1, 2020, Duc signed 8 shortened bidding decisions for 3 contractors: Phuong Tay Medical Technology Joint Stock Company (Hanoi), Phat Thien Company Limited (Hue City) and Thanh Dat Pharmacy (Hue City) with a total value of 9,236 billion VND.

Of which, Phuong Tay Medical Technology Joint Stock Company was nominated to win 2 bids with a contract value of more than 2.31 billion VND, Phat Thien Company Limited won 4 bids with more than 6.427 billion VND, Thanh Dat Pharmacy won 2 bids with 1.55 billion VND. The defendants' actions caused damage to the State of more than 1.578 billion VND.

After liquidating the contract, the contractors deduct 2-3% of the contract value for Germany and Germany assigns Japan to manage this amount.

At the end of 2020, Nhat took 30 million VND and gave 50 million VND to Duc. The remaining amount, defendant Duc said was for agency expenses but there were no invoices, documents, or books.

In addition, there are 9 items that CDC of Thua Thien-Hue province paid more than 484 million VND for but could not be valued because it could not collect documents proving the origin, source, and input documents of these items.

According to the panel of judges, during the questioning process in court, the issuance of the valuation certificate of the DATC Real Estate Consulting and Services Joint Stock Company Branch in Hue, the appraiser collected the quotation in violation of legal regulations, did not store complete information in the valuation file, and did not send the valuation result report with the valuation certificate to the CDC of Thua Thien-Hue province.

Therefore, the People's Court decided to return the case file for further investigation into the behavior and role of those involved in the above price appraisal.

NGUYEN VUONG

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