The authorities in Ha Tinh Province announced a list of 10 officials that are held responsible for the Formosa disaster on July 27.
The Ha Tinh Inspection Committee announced that they had followed the directives from the Central Inspection Committees and the provincial standing committee to inspect and punish officials involved in the Formosa pollution disaster that killed tonnes of fish in three central provinces.
A total of 10 officials in the province had been held accountable. The committee proposed to strictly punish five officials that violated management and consultancy regulations. They are vice head of Ha Tinh Economic Zones Management Board Dang Van Thanh, Director of Natural Resources and Environment Vo Ta Dinh, former head of Ha Tinh Economic Zones Management Board Ngo Dinh Van, Deputy Director of Construction Pham Van Tinh.
Other five officials are to be given more lenient punishments as their violations are less severe including Director of Construction Tran Xuan Tien, deputy heads of Ha Tinh Economic Zone Management Board Pham Tran De and Phan Thang Long, deputy directors of natural resources and environment Phan Lam Son and Nguyen Hung Manh.
The list has been sent to the provincial standing committee.
Fishermen from the central provinces have been warned not to catch species living in the deepest levels of the ocean for 20 nautical miles offshore.
In April, the former Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Nguyen Minh Quang, and former chairman of Ha Tinh Province, Vo Kim Cu were dismissed for their responsibilities in the incident. The party branch at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment during the 2008-2016 period was accused of being irresponsible and lax in their management, supervising and monitoring which led to serious violations in the assessing and approving the Formosa project.
Last June, Formosa admitted that untreated water dumped directly into the sea from its steel plant in Ha Tinh was the main cause of the deaths of hundreds of tonnes of fish in waters off four central provinces. The environmental disaster affected some 100,000 fishermen and locals in the fishing, seafood and tourism industries, according to a government report.
Formosa had paid USD500 million in compensation to people that had their livelihoods affected by the disaster.
dtinews