Excerpt:
Police have recommended Nguyen Thanh Binh, the former chairman of the people’s committee in An Giang province in the Mekong river delta, be charged with power abuse, according to Public Security News, the official mouthpiece of the Ministry of Public Security…
Binh, 59, and other officials ordered subordinates to issue a sand mining licence to the Trung Hau 68 company “in return for material gains”, even though it did not qualify, state-controlled news site VNExpress said, citing police.
Between December 2021 and July 2023, the company mined over five million cubic metres of sand, supplying over a million cubic metres to a local road project and selling the rest for around $11.5 million, according to Public Security News.
In a 2023 report from conservation group WWF, experts warned that sand mining to feed Vietnam’s construction boom was depleting resources so fast that the Mekong Delta — the country’s “rice bowl” — could run out in just over a decade…
