Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Friday signed a decision to remove Dinh Quoc Thai from the position of former Dong Nai province chairman for the 2011-2016 and 2016-2021 terms for violations and shortcomings in his role.
Last December, Thai was expelled from the Communist Party by the Party Central Committee's Secretariat. He was arrested in October 2022 on charges of accepting bribes in the AIC Group equipment bidding scam.
In January, the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Thai to nine years in prison for accepting bribes of VND14.5 billion ($613,300) from AIC Group.
The judgment determined that Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, chairwoman of AIC, had established a relationship with former secretary of Dong Nai's Party Committee, Tran Dinh Thanh, to be introduced to officials in the province to help AIC win 16 bidding packages to provide medical equipment for the construction of Dong Nai General Hospital.
Thanh and Thai received VND14.5 billion ($613,300) each to "facilitate conditions" for AIC to win the bids. After bidding, AIC won 16 packages worth more than VND665 billion ($28.13 million), causing damage to the state of more than VND152 billion ($6.43 million).
Eleven of the 36 defendants were former provincial leaders and officials of departments in Dong Nai. The violations were assessed by the Procuracy as "typical evidence for group interests", showing collusion between enterprises and authorities.