Vietnam arrests another oil firm official for alleged mismanagement

Another official from the scandal-hit PetroVietnam has been arrested and prosecuted over allegations of economic mismanagement at a unit of the energy giant as part of an investigation that has net a number of oil execs, including a fugitive one who “voluntarily returned” last month.

PetroVietnam and the banking sector are at the center of Vietnam’s sweeping corruption crackdown that has ensnared scores of high-ranking officials, including Dinh La Thang, a member of the Communist Party’s decision-making Politburo who headed PetroVietnam from 2005 to 2011.

Le Dinh Mau, the chief accountant of PetroVietnam, had been arrested for “violating state regulations on economic management causing serious consequences”, the Ministry of Public Security said Tuesday, without specifying when exactly the arrest took place.

Mau’s arrest and prosecution were part of an investigation into nearly $150 million in losses accumulated at PetroVietnam Construction JSC (PVC). Four former executives of the firm were arrested last year. Its former board chairman Trinh Xuan Thanh “turned himself in” last month after a 10-month international manhunt. Thanh had sought political asylum in Germany.

Mau’s wrongdoings were directly linked to the budget allocation for a thermal power plant project in northern Vietnam, according to the police. He was appointed as the lead accountant of PetroVietnam in July 2014. The police also said Tuesday that three other officials had also been arrested for their involvement in the case.

Mau's predecessor, Ninh Van Quynh, was among the four PetroVietnam officials that were prosecuted earlier this month also over allegations of economic mismanagement linked to investment losses in the trouble-besieged OceanBank.

Quynh was PetroVietnam’s chief accountant from 2008 to 2014, during which time the recently ousted Politburo member Dinh La Thang was at the helm. Quynh was the group’s vice general director when he was arrested.

Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, spearheaded by Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, is focusing on the much-cosseted public sector. Trong said in July that the fight against corruption is no longer handled slowly and on a case-by case basis.

"It has become a movement," he said.

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