Following the arrests of two former general directors and two other former executives of Vietnam Social Security (VSS), the national social insurance agency has issued a statement reassuring that the interests of all socially and medically insured people will be protected as per law.

A staff member of a VSS office is seen working with a socially insured client

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced yesterday that its investigators had charged the two VSS ex-bosses, Nguyen Huy Ban and Le Bach Hong with infringing State regulations on economic management causing serious consequences under Article 165 of the 1999 Penal Code.

The ministry said in a statement posted on its website (bocongan.gov.vn) yesterday that the arrests were ordered by the Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption, the MPS and the ministry’s Investigation Agency (C03).

The police also arrested Tran Tien Vy, former head of the General Accounting Office of VSS’s Finance Planning Department, and Hoang Ha, former head of the General Planning Office of VSS’s Finance Planning Department on the same charges.

In its statement today, VSS made it clear that the case happened 10 years ago and the Party Central Committee’s Inspection Commission made a conclusion on it.

All those responsible for it have been tackled in line with regulations, said the statement. “Law enforcement agencies are handling the consequences of the case and taking back the lost assets of the State.”

The MPS said its investigators are expanding their investigation of a serious economic rule violation case at VSS, finance leasing firm ALC II and some other organizations.

In late 2017, investigators at the MPS pressed charges on two cases at VSS and Vietnam Debt and Asset Trading Corporation (DATC) following an expanded probe into an economic case which happened at ALC II and which brought former ALC II CEO Vu Quoc Hao a death sentence for embezzlement of assets and intentional violations of regulations.

According to local media reports, Le Bach Hong served as deputy minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs in 2005-2008 and stopped holding this position to take up the post of VSS general director in 2008. He retired in 2014.

A report by the State Audit of Vietnam said that by 2011 VSS had lent to ALC II far more than permitted, with total outstanding loans amounting to VND1 trillion, even though VSS is allowed by law to lend to State-run commercial banks.

By the end of 2015, VSS had not fully recovered the loans borrowed by finance leasing firms ALC I and ALC II, the arms of national agriculture bank Agribank.

SGT