Awards sometimes no measure of good business practices

Phong ran off with his chief accountant Phan Thi Lai in late 2007, only several months after he was named one of the province’s top 10 entrepreneurs.

In September, the People’s Court of Tuy Hoa Town in Phu Yen Province ordered Phuong Nam Joint-Stock Company to repay its debts to Phu Yen Bank for Industry and Trade and local builder Trung Cuong Company.

The Tuy Hoa Civil Verdict Enforcement Agency later decided to auction the company’s property at Hoa An and An Phu industrial zones to repay the company’s debts.

Last month, two owners of a private company in the northern Thai Nguyen Province that was named one of Vietnam’s top 100 enterprises last year were detained on charges of swindling property.

Vo Khanh Duong and his wife Nguyen Thi Quynh Anh, owner of Quynh Duong Company, which provided printing, advertising and wedding services, were accused of failing to pay their debts to local banks, other enterprises and some individuals.

Investigators calculated the couple owed more than VND100 billion ($5.9 million). Duong and Anh, who have not been seen since October 9, had said they only owed about VND20 billion ($1.18 million).

In September, police in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho pressed charges against the former director of a state-owned farm collective for misappropriating government funds.

Tran Ngoc Suong, former director of Song Hau Farm (Sohafarm), was accused of embezzling VND9 billion ($544,000).

Suong won the Asia Pacific Impressive Woman Award in 2002 and was named one of Vietnam’s Labor Heroes in 2000.

Sohafarm’s deputy finance director, chief accountant and a cashier were also arrested for their involvement in a scheme to illegally sublet farm land, raising VND33 billion ($1.96 million) between 1994 and 2005.

Source: TN, Agencies