HCMC – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has signed a decision temporarily suspending Nguyen Duc Chung, chairman of Hanoi City, from his post in 90 days to verify his responsibility in some cases.
Major General To An Xo, office manager of the Ministry of Public Security, told local media that law enforcement agencies are making clear Chung’s alleged involvement in three cases.
The cases mentioned by Xo, who is also the spokesman for the ministry, are local firm Nhat Cuong’s accounting irregularities, money laundering, and serious violations of bidding regulations; the Hanoi People’s Committee’s mismanagement of State assets and wastefulness; and the alleged appropriation of State secrets by Chung’s driver, an official in the Hanoi People’s Committee Office and a Ministry of Public Security officer.
Chung was born in 1967 in Thang Long Commune, Kinh Mon District, Hai Duong Province. He was deputy director of the Hanoi Social Order-Related Crime Investigation Police Department from 2001 to 2004 and then became head of the department until 2010.
He was elected Hanoi Police Deputy Director in late 2010 and became the Hanoi Police Director in 2012. Chung has been chairman of Hanoi since late 2015.
During his tenures, Hanoi has planted more than one million trees, renovated hundreds of lakes, cleaned polluted canals and rivers and opened the Guom Lake pedestrian area. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Chung has issued drastic measures to help the capital city contain the pandemic.
However, many problems in Hanoi have not been resolved, including air pollution, flood, traffic congestion, inefficient renovation of old apartment buildings and polluted rivers, incomplete planning of satellite towns, and land disputes.
Late last month, three people, including Nguyen Hoang Trung, Chung’s driver, were detained and prosecuted over appropriating the State’s secret files related to Bui Quang Huy, general director of Hanoi-based Nhat Cuong Trading and Services Co., Ltd or Nhat Cuong Mobile, who has fled after he was charged with trading in smuggled mobile phones and electronic devices.
