All those 9 defendants were accused of ‘violating construction regulations and causing dire consequences’ according to Article No. 229 of the Penal Code.
The defendants include Hoang The Trung (former director of the management board of the Da River water pipeline construction and investment project), Nguyen Van Khai (former deputy director of the management board of the Da River water pipeline construction and investment project), Truong Tran Hien (former head of supply division of the management board of the Da River water pipeline construction and investment project), Tran Cao Bang (former director of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polyester Pipe – Vinaconex Corporation), Vu Thanh Hai (former head of production division, former workshop foreman, former deputy director of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polyester Pipe – Vinaconex Corporation), Do Dinh Tri (former officer of Vietnam Water, Sanitation and Environment Joint-stock Company – a member of the Ministry of Construction, former head of the consultant and monitoring team for the Da River Water pipeline project), Nguyen Bien Hung (former officer of Vietnam Water, Sanitation and Environment Joint-stock Company – a member of the Ministry of Construction, former deputy head of the consultant and monitoring team for the Da River Water pipeline project), Hoang Quoc Thong (former officer of Vietnam Water, Sanitation and Environment Joint-stock Company – a member of the Ministry of Construction, former monitoring officer for the Da River Water pipeline project), Bui Minh Quan (former deputy director of the equipment production and trading factory – a member of Vietnam Water, Sanitation and Environment Joint-stock Company, former monitoring officer for the Da River Water pipeline project).
Accordingly, the project of the water pipeline in Da River of Hanoi, invested by Vinaconex Corporation, took place from 2004 to 2009. However, after construction, the line was put into operation and cracked or broke many times.
Only from February 4, 2012 until October 10, 2016, the pipeline broke 18 successive times on 23 composite pipes with glass fiber core. Therefore, the operator of the pipeline had to pay more than VND16.6 billion (approx. $729,118) to fix them.
Because of those incidents, the operator had to halt clean water supply of more than 1.7 million m3 to 177,000 households in Hanoi for a total of 386 hours, gravely affecting their normal activities.
Appropriate authorities said that during the construction of the water pipeline, the management board as well as the contractor of the project did not closely monitor the quality of pipes before installation.
Also, when discovering quality problems, they did not either re-check all other pipes in the same batch according to the regulations or carefully observe the remedy of under-qualified ones. In addition, the procedure of monitoring construction was not strict enough to discover mistakes in both building and installation of the pipeline.
