HANOI: The Supreme People’s Procuracy has issued an indictment against Nguyen Cong Minh, chairman of the board of Cong Minh Greenery Corporation, and 46 other defendants in a case involving “violations of bidding regulations causing serious consequences” under Article 222 of the Criminal Code.
Minh is currently wanted by the Ministry of Public Security under a warrant issued on April 8, 2025.
Under the indictment, between 2019 and 2023, Minh established and operated the Cong Minh Greenery network, approaching local officials with decision-making authority to secure favourable conditions for winning contracts to plant and maintain trees in 38 provinces and cities (before the administrative mergers in mid-2025).
Minh either acted directly or instructed members of the board, regional directors, heads of legal departments and regional technical departments, branch directors, and employees designated to serve as company directors within the network to collude with project owners before and during project implementation.
The alleged scheme involved intervening at multiple stages of the procurement process, from site surveys and the selection of tree species and prices to the preparation of bidding plans and the selection of contractors.
The network also worked with parties responsible for design consultancy and the preparation of economic-technical reports to inflate material costs in project estimates.
It allegedly colluded with project owners to insert restrictive criteria into tender documents to limit competition, while obtaining information about contract values and bidding documents before their official release.
This enabled companies within Minh’s network to be selected based on their personnel and experience with similar projects, as required by project owners.
After contracts were awarded, the companies and personnel named in the bids did not carry out the work themselves.
Instead, branch directors in the areas where projects were located organised the construction work directly or hired other personnel to do it.
The network also allegedly enlisted other companies as sham bidders to create the appearance of competition and ensure that a company within Nguyen Cong Minh’s network won the contracts.
Between 2019 and 2023, during the implementation of tree-planting and maintenance projects in the former districts of Cam Lo, Gio Linh, Huong Hoa and Trieu Phong in the former central province of Quang Tri, defendants representing project owners allegedly facilitated Thai Huu Dung and Phan Duy Chau in working with consultancy firms from the cost-estimation stage.
They were allowed to attend meetings to explain economic-technical reports and access information and documents before tender documents were officially issued.
This allegedly enabled them to inflate material prices, participate in and win contracts in the area, causing losses to the State budget.
Defendants working for valuation consultancy firms allegedly failed to conduct surveys of actual market prices.
Instead, they agreed to use quotations supplied by Dung and Chau as the basis for issuing valuation certificates, thereby facilitating the inflation of material prices and causing further losses to the State budget.
The indictment states that, through these methods, Minh directed and managed the Cong Minh Greenery network to inflate tree prices, collude in bidding and commit fraud in procurement processes involving 1,218 projects across the 38 provinces and cities before the administrative mergers.
The projects had a total contract value of more than VNĐ3.962 trillion (US$151 million).
The alleged scheme caused losses of more than VNĐ790.6 billion ($30.6 million) to the State budget, while Minh personally benefited by more than VNĐ264.8 billion ($10.1 million).
As Minh was absent from his registered locality and his whereabouts could not be established, the ministry issued a wanted notice and made it public.
Investigative and prosecution procedures have been carried out in his absence in accordance with the law. - Vietnam News/ANN
