With a 96.6 percent ‘yes’ vote, the National Assembly this morning removed Dang Thi Hoang Yen, a NA deputy of Long An Province, from the list of its members due to her dishonesty in declaration.

This file photo shows Dang Thi Hoang Yen speaking at a National Assembly meeting, Photo: Tuoi Tre

The vote was carried out after the NA’s Committee for Deputies’ Affairs reported to the NA on May 24 about the NA Standing Committee’s proposal to dismiss Yen. 

According to the vote results, 457 of the 473/500 deputies who took part in the vote agreed to Yen’s membership removal.

Under the Law of Organization of the National Assembly, a deputy will be removed from office by the NA when at least two-thirds of the total number of NA deputies vote ‘yes’ to the removal. 

After the vote, chairman of the NA Office Nguyen Xuan Phuc presented a draft resolution on Yen’s removal to the NA for approval. 

Yen, 57, who won the NA election in May 2011, is the chairwoman of several organizations including Tan Tao Group, Tan Duc Investment and Industry Joint Stock Company, and Tan Tao University.

According to the inquires by concerned agencies, Yen was once admitted into the Communist Party of Vietnam in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, but she did not declare this in her profile as a candidate for the NA election.

She has also been found not mentioning her current husband, Jimmy Tran, in her record.

In July 2010, she sought a divorce from Jimmy at the Long An Province's People's Court, but she recently withdrew the petition after the court’s verdict on the divorce was cancelled by the Supreme People’s Court.

On July 5, 2010, Jimmy, 57, left Vietnam for the US, and two months later, the Ministry of Public Security prosecuted him for “abusing trust to appropriate assets”.

Meanwhile, speaking at the NA meeting on May 23, Yen claimed that the Committee for Deputies’ Affairs had not fulfilled its duty in defending her.

She also complained that the Long An Province Interior Department had not given her concrete instructions about how to make declarations.

“As a result, my record might not have satisfied voters who wanted to clearly understand me. However, it is totally different from the allegation that I was dishonest in making declarations.”

Yen is the third deputy to have been removed from the NA for wrongdoings.

In 2005, Le Minh Hoang, former director of the Ho Chi Minh City Electricity Company, had his NA membership removed after he was found involved in an electricity meter scandal. 

One year later, Mac Kim Ton, former director of the Thai Binh Province Education and Training Department, was also removed from the NA for abusing position and power.

Source: Tuoi Tre