Former Party chief and mayor of Vietnam’s southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City will face disciplines after a recent proposal made by the Central Party Commission of Inspection.

Le Thanh Hai, former Politburo member and former Secretary of the city’s Party Committee, and Le Hoang Quan, former chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, were blamed for wrongdoings in the implementation of the Thu Thiem New Urban Area project.

Le Thanh Hai, former Politburo member and former Secretary of the city’s Party Committee, and Le Hoang Quan, former chairman of the municipal People’s Committee. Photo: Bizlive

The Politburo, the country's supreme decision-making body, will decide the disciplinary form.

The pair have to bear responsibility for their misconduct and shortcomings caused in the municipal Party Committee’s Standing Board in the 2010-2015 tenure and the People’s Committee in the 2011-2016 term, the Central Party Commission of Inspection said in an announcement on March 5.

Hai and other top leaders of the municipal government had infringed regulations and showed a lack of responsibility, slack leadership, and poor control in the construction of the Thu Thiem New Urban Area which has been left decade-long civil litigation.

The misconduct resulted in heavy losses for the State and negatively affected the country’s socioeconomic development and the livelihood of thousands of HCM City residents, tarnishing the prestige of the municipal authorities and sparking public concerns, the Government Office said in an investigation before.

Meanwhile, Le Hoang Quan, former deputy secretary of the HCM City Party Committee and former chairman of the municipal government, must share responsibility for the misconduct of the standing board of the municipal Party Committee and bear the main liability for mistakes made by the HCM City government, the Saigon Times reported.

In addition, former deputy secretary of the HCM City Party Committee and former vice chairman of the municipal government Nguyen Van Dua as well as other municipal vice chairpersons Nguyen Thi Hong, Le Van Khoa, and Vu Hung Viet, must shoulder responsibility for violations of the Party’s rules and their failure to fulfill their duties.

Included into the master plan dozens of years ago, the Thu Thiem New Urban Area project was designed to cover 930 hectares, including 770 hectares for the new urban area and 160 hectares for resettlement, with a population of 200,000.

More than 99% of the site for the project has been cleared, but over 100 households continue to complain about the loss of their land.