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SOE equitisations need transparency

by VTV403 October 2016 Last updated at 11:20 AM

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VTV.vn - The government is currently making management more effective by equitising state-owned enterprises. However, the process has experienced many challenges, such as inaccurate property evaluation.

This has resulted in property loss and allowed many opportunistic firms to seize government property at unreasonably low prices.

When Vivaso was slated for equitisation, its total property was evaluated at nearly 14 million USD. Many of its former employees believed the evaluation was much lower than the actual value of 41 freight vessels, 164 barges, 8 ports, 7 subsidiary companies, and over 50 hectares of land.

Nguyen Huy Thanh, Former Director of VIVASO Hanoi Port said: Our Hanoi port attracted a lot of interest from investors. Many offered around 17 to 20 million USD to buy it. Therefore, VIVASO’s total value of 14 million USD just does not add up.

"I believe they did not transparently evaluate the property in accordance with the company’s records. The company was mysteriously sold in whole just 2 to 3 days after initial public offering", Nguyen Trong Toan. Former Director of Maritime Transport 1, VIVASO added.

Lawyer Trương Thanh Đức believes the government has suffered heavy property losses due to the firms’ failure to comply with Decree 127/2014 on property evaluation during equitisation.

Truong Thanh Duc, Director of Basico Law Firm said: Many equitisation cases are only realised by people, when the process is complete. These firms' shares could have been sold for a lot more, if proper marketing had been implemented. Instead, people only received exclusive information through special connections. The low stock prices of these firms are highly questionable.

The National Assembly has proposed that a detailed policy on property evaluation be imposed.

Nguyen Duckien, Deputy Head of National Assembly’s Economic Committee said: There was a case where the highest bidder evaluated a TV entertainment firm to be 4 times higher than the lowest bidder’s evaluation. This gap is intriguing.

To prevent the exploitation of SOE equitisation, the Prime Minister believes that firms have to guarantee the transparency of their audits under the observation of law enforcement agencies./.