Vietnam audit reveals state-owned firms flaunt rules, make losses

Aug 31, 2011, 5:50 GMT

Hanoi - Some of Vietnam's largest state-owned companies are breaking financial management rules and suffering big losses, authorities said Wednesday.

Violations common among state-owned enterprises included false value added tax declarations, dishonest reports of expenses and non-payment of land-use fees, Deputy State Auditor General Le Minh Khai said.

The losses were revealed in a report on state-owned businesses in 2010, published by the State Audit Office of Vietnam on Tuesday.

Among the worst offenders were construction company Song Hong Corporation, which lost 20,641 billion dong (nearly 1 billion dollars).

Vietnam Post lost 1.026 billion dong and Financial Leasing Company 2, a subsidiary of the country's largest state-owned commercial bank Agribank, lost 4,595 billion dong.

This month, Finance Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, a former state auditor general, said the Electricity Viet Nam had suffered an accumulative debt worth nearly 1.7 billion dollars, but the audit office did not publish the results on Tuesday, saying the data was incomplete.

Both Vietnamese and foreign experts have criticized the government for overindulging and badly managing state-owned enterprises, leading to big losses for the country, including the loss of 4.6 billion dollars by the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group.