VietNamNet Bridge – Despite the strict regulations, minerals still have been illegally exploited and exported every day. The natural resources and minerals have been bleeding every day in the southern province of Binh Duong.

At 10.30 am of August 30, PC49, an environment police unit, joined forces with the Binh Duong provincial department of natural resources and the environment inspected a land plot with an area of thousands of square meters in the Tan My Industrial Zone, managed by the Tot I Company Ltd.

An abyss was found in the area which helped the illegal mineral exploiters to dig clay and red gravel soil, the two kinds of minerals with high economic value.

The relevant agencies discovered on the site a lot of dug ditches, showing that the minerals were being exploited. The traces of excavators were still found in one of the ditches. A machine here stopped working, while 3-4 other machines were found nearby in a good status and some dump trucks which would be put into operation soon.

A tunnel with the area of 384 square meters and the depth of 5-6 meters was discovered. It was used by the illegal exploiters to take away red gravel soil, which could be used to build roads and clay used to make bricks.

The inspectors found out that the Tot I Company had exploited and carried away 1536 cubic meters of red gravel soil and clay. The land plot is located within the Tan My Industrial Zone developed by the company itself.

Prior to that, competent agencies once discovered that Tot I, reasoning the land area improvement for the industrial zone development, excavated a lot of hills to exploit minerals illegally.

It seems that Tot I has never stopped its illegal mineral exploitation, since new ditches have been discovered in the land area.

Inter-ministerial agencies have recently also discovered a lot of violations in mineral exploitation under different modes. In many cases, people exploited minerals without licenses. In other cases, licensed exploiters deliberately exploited the amounts of minerals higher than the licensed levels. Especially, many individuals and businesses were found as selling minerals without invoices issued and no declaration for natural resource tax.

The Phu Nam Minh Company Ltd In Hoa Loi commune of Ben Cat district committed fraud when exploiting 10,000 cubic meters of red gravel soil in excess, when its exploitation license expired.

The Bach Nhan Company in Dinh An commune of Dau Tieng district was found as illegally exploiting 49,000 cubic meters of the cover soil and 1000 cubic meters of clay which evaded the tax of over 100 million dong.

Tran Van Nhon, a local resident in Phuoc Hoa commune of Phu Giao district, reasoning the land surface improvement, has also illegally taken away 10,000 cubic meters of clay. In this case, the State failed to collect 80 million dong in tax from the exploiter.

Nguyen Van Kim, Deputy Director of the Binh Duong provincial Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, said that the biggest headache for the local authorities is the illegal sand exploitation on the Saigon and Dong Nai rivers.

Kim said local residents’ boats regularly work at night to absorb sand from the rivers. If they are discovered by the security guards, they would sink the boats and escape. Therefore, it is very difficult to catch the violators and punish them.

According to the local authorities, there are 25 enterprises which exploit minerals to make construction materials. 41 licenses are still valid with the projects carried out on the total area of 500 hectares which have the exploitation capacity of 14 million cubic meters per annum.

Kim Chi