Vietnam Detains Ex-PetroVietnam Chair in Power Abuse Probe

Nguyen Xuan Quynh and Linh Vu Nguyen
·3 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Vietnam police detained a former chairman of Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, also known as PetroVietnam, who is also a former deputy trade minister as the government inspectorate office criticized the ministry for lack of oversight and failing to detect violations of petroleum traders.

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Hoang Quoc Vuong was arrested for alleged abuse of power as part of an on-going trade ministry investigation, according to a statement on the Ministry of Public Security’s website.

Vuong retired from his chairman position Jan. 1, the government statement said. He was deputy trade minister between 2015 and 2020 and was in charge of areas including electricity, renewable energy and sustainable VnExpress reported.

Neither Vuong nor PetroVietnam could be reached for comment.

The trade ministry displayed loose management and failed to promptly detect violations of petroleum traders’ storage conditions and distribution requirements, VnExpress reported in a separate article, citing a government inspectorate report.

The detention of Vuong comes after a long string of arrests touching on various government and business sectors. Vietnam’s Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong calls his anti-graft campaign a “blazing furnace” that has entangled hundreds of government officials and business executives in investigations at least since 2021. Trong seeks to ensure the party’s legitimacy in the nation of 100 million people in face of wide-ranging scandals.

In December, police detained Deputy Trade Minister Do Thang Hai as part of an investigation tied to Xuyen Viet Oil Travel and Transport Trading Company for allegedly taking bribes. Earlier that month, a former leader of a Mekong Delta province was held as part of the same probe.

The country experienced turmoil in the petroleum market in 2022 due to a prolonged shortage of fuel, leading to the closure of some gas stations, VnExpress reported. The government inspectorate report also highlighted violations in the nation’s petroleum price stabilization fund from Jan. 2017 to April 2018, the news website said.

The Communist Party’s inspection panel last month said it also detected violations in regulating development mechanisms for solar and wind power policy that potentially carry huge costs to the state in terms of money and asset.

The government inspectorate in a late December report said the trade ministry approved more solar projects than planned for in the nation’s recent power development plan. One hundred sixty-eight solar projects with a total capacity of 14,707 megawatts were given the green-light between 2016 and 2020 — 17.3 times higher than the total solar capacity approved in a national power plan, according to the government’s website.

In 2020 alone, the total capacity of grid-connected solar power was 8,642 megawatts — 10.2 times higher than the capacity approved by a government plan, the government said. Solar projects with “no legal basis” were approved in 15 provinces that don’t have solar farms in their investment plans, the government said.

--With assistance from Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen.

(Updates the story with Vuong previously overseeing electricity, renewable energy sectors in the third paragraph, and solar project approvals in the last two pargraphs.)

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