Vietnam suspends minister over TV deal
HANOI: Vietnam’s communications minister was suspended Monday for overseeing a proposed deal to buy a lossmaking private TV company which could have cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.
The rare and severe punishment is part of the communist government’s widening corruption crackdown targeting highrolling executives and officials in a country unused to seeing the powerful publicly toppled.
Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan was suspended in a decision signed by the president for “violations”, the government said on its website without elaborating.
The statement follows an earlier decision from the Communist Party to punish Tuan, 57, for showing a “lack of responsibility and poor leadership” over the deal. Tuan is accused of overseeing the purchase by the state-run Mobifone telecommunications giant of the private AVG television company.
Mobifone bought 95 percent of Audio Visual Global (AVG) in 2015 for around $385 million, even though the company had recorded losses of about $70 million.
The government said the purchase could have caused $303 million in losses for the state had not before officials stepped in to halt the final deal and order AVG to refund the purchase price.
Tuan spent decades climbing the ranks of the communist party, serving 30 years in the propaganda department before being appointed deputy communications minister in 2014 and then minister in 2016. Monday’s announcement did not say whether Tuan would face criminal charges or whether he would retain his other role as deputy head of the party’s propaganda department.
Mobifone’s former head Le Nam Tra and a senior communications ministry official were arrested earlier this month in connection with the case, but have not yet been charged.
Tuan is among the most senior officials to be punished under the government’s anti-graft sweep, which has captivated a country where politicians are seen as untouchable. — AFP