Vietnam, Japan to jointly handle alleged $780k bribery In this file photo, a train is running on the north-south railway system in Vietnam. Tuoi Tre Vietnam and Japan have agreed to establish a joint committee to handle a case in which the leader of Japan Transportation Consultants, Inc. (JTC) admitted to paying over US$780,000 in kickbacks to win an ODA-funded project in Vietnam. The agreement was reached at a meeting held on Friday between Transport Minister Dinh La Thang and Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Fukada Hiroshi to deal with the alleged corruption scandal and discuss measures to prevent similar cases in the future. At the event, the two sides also agreed that the joint committee will convene its first meeting in Hanoi next week. The meeting will be co-chaired by a Vietnamese Deputy Transport Minister and the Japanese Envoy to Vietnam. A day earlier, the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport set up a team, along with a hotline, to look into the alleged bribery. The team is comprised of eight members led by Nguyen Van Huyen, chief inspector of the ministry. The unit will investigate a recent accusation that JTC paid kickbacks to become the consultant for the Yen Vien-Ngoc Hoi railway route project, a Japanese ODA-funded project in Hanoi, Huyen said. The accusation came last week, when the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that Tamio Kakinuma, JTC’s president, confessed his company had paid ¥80 million ($782,640) in bribes in return for an ODA (official development assistance) project order worth ¥4.2 billion ($41,088,600) in Vietnam. A hotline, at (+84) 0986 093 979, has also been set up to receive information related to the alleged scandal, Huyen added. The chief inspector also said that transport ministry inspectors already began inspecting all JTC-related projects on Thursday. In a report to the ministry on Wednesday, the Vietnam Railways Corporation (VRC) said that it has reviewed the process of the implementation of the Yen Vien-Ngoc Hoi railway route project but has yet to find any abnormal signs. Four contractors, including JTC, took part in the bid for the project, but three of them eventually quit, so JTC later became its sole consultant contractor, the report said. Since 1993, JTC has engaged in 14 projects in Vietnam, including five railway projects funded by Japanese ODA, it added. Meanwhile, Transport Minister Thang has requested that VRC halt disbursements expected to be made under a contract signed with JTC for this project and suspend other planned financial negotiations connected to it with the Japanese firm. So far fourteen Vietnamese officials and ex-officials have been ordered to write reports on their responsibility in the suspicious project, with four of them even being suspended.  Tuoitrenews