Vietnam cooperating with Japan on probe of alleged bribery case related to Tenma Vietnam
Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam is coordinating with Japan on
the investigation of a Japanese company allegedly paying bribes to Vietnamese
tax and customs officials, said Minister of Public Security To Lam on the sidelines of the National Assembly meeting on May 26.
The case is being examined and inspected by tax and
financial inspectorate agencies in Vietnam, Lam said.
He further noted that the Vietnamese side has started by
exchanging information with Japan as the allegation originated from the
Japanese side.
Earlier, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung has
requested an urgent investigation into the alleged bribery of Vietnamese officials
by Tenma Vietnam, a subsidiary of Japan’s plastic product maker Tenma
Corporation.
Dung requested the Director-General of the General Department of Taxation and
the Director-General of the General Department of Vietnam Customs to report to the ministry on recent allegations in
Japanese media about bribes paid by Tenma Vietnam to the tune of 232,000 USD to
avoid paying corporate and value-added tax.
At the same time, he assigned the Ministry's inspection agency to
immediately set up an inspection team to examine the Tax Department and the
Customs Department in northern Bac Ninh province, where Tenma Vietnam is
located.
The case came into the spotlight when
Japanese media including Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Kyodo news agency and Nikkei, reported that Tenma Vietnam gave a bribe of 25 million JYP (232,000 USD) to Vietnamese customs
officials.
According to Asahi Shimbun, the Tokyo-based Tenma
Corporation confessed the case to the Tokyo District Prosecutor. Tenma
Corporation reportedly took the initiative to set up a third-party committee to
investigate the violation. Bribing foreign governments is a prohibited practice
in Japan./.