Finance ministry official stripped of Party positions over Covid test kit scandal

Dang Cong Khoi and Nguyen Van Truyen, both deputy heads of the Ministry of Finance’s Department of Price Management, received warnings for the same violation, the Central Inspection Commission announced Thursday.

Last month, the Commission said the Party Committee of the price management department had violated the principle of democratic centralism and was negligent in managing and monitoring, allowing certain individuals to violate the laws and Party regulations regarding pricing negotiations and monitoring for Covid-19 test kits, among others.

Such violations were deemed to have caused serious consequences, caused huge losses to the national budget and society’s resources, negatively affected the Covid-19 fight and the reputation of the Party and state authorities, the commission said.

Phan Quoc Viet, general director of Viet A, admitted in January that he had inflated the price of a Covid-19 test kit by 45 percent and sent around VND800 billion ($35.2 million) as “bonuses” to company partners. Viet said he had bribed certain individuals in this regard.

Several officials including high-ranking military generals and directors of provincial branches of the Center for Diseases Control have been arrested or placed under criminal investigation for their involvement in the case.

Former Hanoi chairman Chu Ngoc Anh and former Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long were arrested in June due to their involvement in the scam.