Seven officials now in office and three retirees in the transport sector should submit their reports on their roles in the Hanoi Urban Railway 1 project funded by Japanese official development assistance (ODA), according to a ministry statement issued on March 26.
The Japanese media reported Japan Transportation Consultants, Inc. (JTC) had admitted paying kickbacks to senior civil servants in Vietnam to win a consulting contract for the railway project in Hanoi.
Two senior officials of Vietnam Railways Corporation and another from Vietnam Railway Authority had been earlier suspended over the kickback allegations. They are Vietnam Railways Corporation deputy general directors Ngo Anh Tao and Tran Quoc Dong, and Tran Quang Luc, director of the Vietnam Railway Authority’s Project Management Unit.
Among the 10 people asked to report this time around are acting General Director of the Vietnam Road Administration Nguyen Duc Thang, former Transport Deputy Minister Le Manh Hung, Tran Quoc Viet, chairman of Vietnam Expressway Corporation, and Nguyen Minh Tuyen, deputy head of the Department of Traffic Projects Construction and Quality Management.
In a relevant development, Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong is having a three-day visit to Japan for investigation from March 25 to 28.
The swift actions taken by the Ministry of Transport came after The Yomiuri Shimbun said in a news report that JTC President Tamio Kakinuma admitted paying 80 million yen (about US$780,000) to win a US$41 million contract in Vietnam.
Starting in 2008, the nine-year project is to build the Ngoc Hoi-Yen Vien sky train system at a cost of over VND19.4 trillion (US$920 million), nearly VND14 trillion of it sourced from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
