WB bars its doors to a Vietnamese company The World Bank’s press release states that it has debarred Infra Thang Long JSC for its fraudulent practices relating to the development projects in East Asia. The defendant said it just “did not report the truth” while it did not deliberately cheat anyone.   In the press release, the World Bank said the Vietnam-based private company submitted the documents with untrue information when attending the bids for the World Bank’s projects. These include the projects on upgrading the urban areas in Mekong Delta, on reducing poverty in the northern mountainous areas (second phase) and the project on sustainable development in Da Nang City. The decision to debar Infra Thang Long takes effects since October and it will be valid for 2.5 years. Nguyen Quang Huan, Infra Thang Long’s General Director, on October 9 admitted on Nguoi lao dong that the company violated the commitments with the World Bank when submitting the documents with untrue information. However, Huan said the Vietnamese version of the World Bank’s press release used a word which was “too heavy” which did not truly reflect the nature of the fact. Huan said the World Bank used the word “fraudulent” in the original version, which can be interpreted into Vietnamese as “khong that tha” or “thieu trung thuc” which just meant “dishonest” or “lack of honesty.” Meanwhile, the Vietnamese version of the press release used the word “lua dao” (cheating). “The word “lua dao” makes people understand that the situation is terrible. But in fact, it is not as serious that people think,” Huan said on Nguoi lao dong. According to Huan, the problem arose when Infra Thang Long won the bid for the consultancy package of the poverty reduction project in 2011. The World Bank has discovered that Tang Chi Anh, a worker of Infra Thang Long, provided untrue information about himself. Anh said he was the head of the fieldwork team leader. However, in Infra Thang Long’s documents, Anh was just the assistant and interpreter. After the finding, Infra Thang Long was debarred from implementing the package. Checking the contracts signed with Infra Thang Long, the World Bank discovered other two problems. In the documents relating to the sustainable development project in Da Nang, Infra Thang Long declared that Tang Chi Anh began working for the company in 2007. However, in fact, Anh only began working there under an official labor contract in 2009. He was a collaborator only in 2007-2009. Regarding the project on upgrading urban areas in Mekong Delta, Anh affirmed he once joined a project on urban area development in Hai Phong City, while the World Bank discovered that there was no such a project. Huan said Infra Thang Long and the World Bank’s representatives had long discussions for one year before the press release reached out to local press agencies, during which Huan tried to prove that the company did not deliberately give the untrue information, and that this is just an “accident”… “The two parties would meet to discuss further. The World Bank will not add Infra Thang Long onto the black list immediately, but it would take further investigation,” Huan said.   VietNamNet Bridge