On December 15, Hanoi City Police said that the Security Investigation Agency had just prosecuted and detained Pham Van Long ( Principal of Hanoi College of Tourism) and two subordinates, Nguyen Tuan Ngoc (Head of the Student Affairs Department) and Nguyen Van Sang (specialist of the Student Affairs Department) for the crime of Abusing position and power while performing official duties.
The police said that they initially determined that Hanoi College of Tourism had paid students to attend the A80 Anniversary Ceremony with signs of violation and lack of transparency.
In November, Hanoi College of Tourism was approved to pay more than 1.9 billion VND to 984 students, equivalent to each student receiving 1,960,000 VND. However, in reality, the school only pays each participating student 940,000 VND, along with food and drink expenses during practice. Mr. Long directed to keep more than 202 million VND to pay for school staff.
The incident was discovered when many students of Hanoi College of Tourism were upset because of the difference in funding between schools participating in the A80 training.
Previously, at a dialogue with students on December 1, when answering students' questions about why the amount was not clearly stated on the paper when signing the receipt, Mr. Long said that teachers thought that it was a simple thing to say that when the students received the money, they would record the amount in, to confirm the amount of money they received through their writing. However, the teachers did not explain this, so they considered it a lie.
According to Mr. Long, the reason the school divided the allowances into 2 installments was to want to pay a part for the student honoring ceremony, and issue a certificate.
However, in reality, according to the investigation of the authorities, after receiving the decision approving the payment of money from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Nguyen Tuan Ngoc (Head of the Student Affairs Department) directed Nguyen Van Sang to leave the received amount section empty, not showing how much the amount was in the documents. After the students signed the receipt, Sang completed the supplementary amount according to the cost for the training sessions.
Sang submitted this statement to the school's financial accounting department for settlement of a total of more than 1.9 billion VND, corresponding to each student receiving 1.96 million VND.
Before paying the student's allowances, Sang reported that Ngoc expected to spend more than VND924 million to 984 students, equivalent to VND940,000/person. In addition, 801 million VND was spent on buying food for students during the training days, equivalent to 440,000 VND/person. The remaining balance is more than 202 million VND, about 580,000 VND/person.
Ngoc reported to Pham Van Long about the above payment plan and was approved by the principal. Long directed to keep more than 202 million VND to pay for the school's staff later.
Currently, Hanoi City Police are consolidating records and strictly handling the subjects according to regulations.
