HANOI: An appeals court on Wednesday (Oct 7) cut former Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien's prison sentence to three years from six, in a case over two hospital projects that prosecutors say cost the state more than VNĐ803 billion in losses (US$31 million).
The appellate division of the Supreme People's Court in Hanoi, which also ruled on appeals from nine co-defendants, rejected Tien's request for a suspended sentence. She was convicted over the second-campus projects for Bach Mai and Viet Duc hospitals.
The panel said Tien, as head of the ministry, was responsible for running the health sector and directly oversaw planning, finance, investment, infrastructure and medical equipment.
Her sign-off on flawed contractor-selection plans, project proposals and designs left both projects stalled, off target and a drain on public funds, the court found.
Tien did not directly cause the losses, but her approvals set the stage for the violations her subordinates committed, and she must face a penalty that fits her conduct.
Weighing in her favour were her long service record, her family's contributions to the revolution, and her full payment of the compensation ordered at trial.
Both hospitals are now treating patients, a development the first trial did not consider, and several agencies and organisations, including the hospitals themselves, had written to the court seeking leniency.
Tien and her family paid VNĐ108.5 billion ($4.2 million) before the appeal hearing, settling the compensation ordered at the first trial.
On Oct 1, they paid another VNĐ1.1 billion ($42,000) to help other defendants cover the damage. Eight other defendants together paid more than VNĐ1.7 billion ($65,000) in addition.
The payments changed prosecutors' recommendation.
On Sept 26, they urged the court to take between six months to a year off Tiến's sentence. By the Oct 1 hearing, they were seeking a cut of 1.5 to two years, but said she would still face more than three years, ruling out a suspended term.
For the other defendants, prosecutors sought shorter sentences for five and suspended terms for the remaining four.
Tien's lawyer asked for a suspended sentence of less than three years. He cited her age, her career achievements and what he described as the absence of any profit motive in carrying out the projects, and said the family's extra payment showed good faith.
The lawyer also disputed a figure of about VNĐ588 billion ($22.6 million) in opportunity costs, which the case file calculated on more than VNĐ5 trillion of State capital invested while the projects ran late.
He said that in nearly one of the four years used in the calculation, construction was halted and the buildings were put to work in the Covid-19 response on government orders. Prosecutors stood by their recommendations.
The two projects, which began in 2014, had a combined budget of nearly VNĐ10 trillion ($385 miilion).
Prosecutors alleged that Tien and other officials broke the rules in choosing foreign consultants, awarding contracts without competitive bidding and approving contractor-selection plans.
The first-instance verdict also found that Tien accepted about VNĐ7.5 billion ($289,000) in payments from subordinates.
She said the people who handed over the money never told her where it came from. At that trial, she accepted responsibility as the person in charge and admitted she had not supervised the projects closely enough to catch the violations early. - Vietnam News/ANN
