At a March 28 meeting between Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang and Japanese ambassador to Vietnam, Fukada Hiroshi in Hanoi, they agreed upon bold initiatives need to be undertaken to restore the public trust in the honesty and fairness of the construction bidding process and expanded to encompass measures that need to be put in place to prevent corruption from occurring in future projects.
The formation of the investigation task force demonstrates that the two governments are committed to stamp out corruption and actively cooperate to that end.
In another move, Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong returned to Vietnam after a two-day working session in Japan. The results of the trip have not been unveiled yet.
Earlier, the Ministry of Transport distributed a list of ten key targets the investigation is narrowing in on including some officials, civil servants who are heads of some departments under the ministry, in addition to former Transport Deputy Minister Le Manh Hung.
Apart from establishing an investigation team, a working group has been set up to verify information provided by the Japanese embassy and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Especially, a hot line of 098 609 39 79 has been also established to receive the information on JTC case.
The working group and investigation team are currently focused on following up on concrete leads related to the Vietnam Railways and projects which JTC has involvement in, especially the Hanoi urban metro project No 1 – the first phase.
Nguyen Van Huyen – chief inspector of the Ministry of Transport and also head of the working group said that he is working directly with individuals on the list of investigation to ask them report on their responsibilities related to the projects to insure the reports are complete and accurate.
