VietNamNet Bridge - Huge sums of money are spent every year to maintain the fleet that conducts surveys and research on the East Sea, but the money has not been used in an effective way.

 

An Ninh Tien Te’s reporters found a list of the members of the team that conducted a survey with an oceanographic research ship in the south and southwest territorial waters in 2013 and was surprised because there was no “chief scientist” in the list.

Later, director of the Oceanographic Research Center Tran Hong Lam said that there was no chief scientist in the list of the researchers participating in the survey in the central waters in 2014.

“There was no chief scientist, but we had a research team head,” he explained, adding that “team head” takes higher responsibility than “chief scientist”.

“The team head” was Nguyen Thanh Binh, the major monitoring officer from the Sea Survey and Monitoring Division of the center. 

Binh’s profile showed that he graduated school with a bachelor’s in meteorology. 

Meanwhile, under current laws, “chief scientist” must have a doctorate majoring in marine, island or equivalent degrees. The team leader mentioned by Lam cannot satisfy the requirements to lead the oceanographic research ship.

The current regulations also stipulate that when conducting trips to survey the sea, agencies have to include chief scientists onto the lists of research teams.

At the Oceanographic Research Center, besides Lam, there are three other officers with doctorates, who can satisfy the requirements to take the post of “chief scientist”. They are Hoang Trung Thanh, deputy director, Le Van Cong, deputy director, and Nguyen Anh Hoanh, head of marine ecology. 

What angered the public was that while a bachelor’s degree professional had to go to the open sea and shoulder heavy responsibility, the PhDs were not present on the trip.

Reporters have found that it takes about VND10 billion to carry out a sea survey trip, while the annual regular expenses on the research ship are about VND7-8 billion. In principle, the ship must undergo periodic maintenance once every 2.5 years, which costs VND10 billion on average.

The huge sums of money are believed to be spent in an unreasonable way, especially when the ship goes to the open sea annually, with a captain with a bachelor’s degree.

Reporters have also found that the officers of the centers have majored in many different fields. They include Nguyen Thi Trang, a bachelor in politics, Ngo Thi Thanh, a bachelor in philology, Nguyen Thi Cuc, a bachelor in geography and Tran Thi Hanh, who finished a business administration school.

The presence of the personnel majoring in the fields at sea radar stations has raised concerns about the effectiveness of their work.

ANTT