Vietnam communications minister suspended over suspect TV deal
Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan had shown a ‘lack of responsibility and poor leadership’ over Mobifone’s purchase of AVG television company
Vietnam’s communications minister was suspended Monday for overseeing a proposed deal to buy a loss-making private TV company which could have cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.
The rare and severe punishment is part of the communist government’s widening corruption crackdown targeting high-rolling executives and officials in a country unused to seeing the powerful publicly toppled.
Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan was suspended in a decision signed by the president for “violations”, the government said on its website without elaborating.
The statement follows an earlier decision from the Communist Party to punish Tuan, 57, for showing a “lack of responsibility and poor leadership” over the deal.
Tuan is accused of overseeing the purchase by the state-run Mobifone telecommunications giant of the private AVG television company.
Mobifone bought 95 per cent of Audio Visual Global (AVG) in 2015 for around US$385 million, even though the company had recorded losses of about US$70 million.