Vietnam is naturally blessed with bountiful mineral resources. But loose
controls, inspections and audits of mining activities are being blamed for
depleting resources and seriously damaging the environment.
According to Le The Chien, deputy
head of State Audit’s sectoral economy inspection, violations occur in almost
every aspect in mining activities, from licensing to project implementation.
Insufficient licensing has been
detected in many provinces that have projects on steel ores, manganese and
titanium extraction. The steel sector alone was found as having 32 investment
projects not reflected in official planning documents.
Latest figures by Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environment’s General Department of Geology and Minerals
of Vietnam (DGMV) show that up to 90 per cent of businesses operating in mining
field have impinged on the environmental protection regulations.
Most localities, organisations,
individuals and businesses in this field were detected by the DGMV to incur
violations.
These findings are attributed to
inadequate attention being paid to auditing activities involving management,
extraction, usage and mineral resources business in the past years.
In recent years, auditing
activities have mainly focused on management and usage of land resources,
particularly the execution of the land laws and financial obligations as a
source of contributions to state budget such as land rental and land taxes,
according to Phan Truong Giang, head of State Audit’s General Department.
Giang also said auditing in
mining field mainly involved with auditing of financial statements and the
balance sheets of businesses and relevant ministries, state agencies and
localities deploying extraction, management and mineral usage, and insufficient
attention was paid to specialised audits.
According to State Audit’s chief
auditor Dinh Tien Dung, this agency was scaling up specialised auditing from
early 2012 with a total 16 specialised audits proposed this year, 11 audits
more than in 2011 focusing on appraising the efficiency in land usage and
management as well as natural resources and mineral extraction and business.
“In 2013, parallel to auditing
the mining field’s licensing process when handling specialised audits,” Dung
said, “the State Audit intends to link audits on management and usage of land,
property, housing and urban development, mining business to audits of the state
budget, investment and target programmes, state-owned enterprises, financial
and banking entities and consider them our focal task.”
A DGMV source said priority will
be given to mining hot spots, improper transfer of the right for mining
activities and strengthening cooperation with inspection, tax and environmental
police bodies to hike audit efficiency.
Han Tin | vir.com.vn
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