The Hai Duong Police Department has paid VND650 million (US$30,895) to fishermen as compensation after its environmental police officers inappropriately seized a batch of fresh octopi and then let it spoil more than two weeks ago.
The seizure had reportedly caused losses of nearly VND1 billion to hundreds of fishermen in Ho Chi Minh City’s Can Gio District. Vietnam’s 2012 annual per capita income was $1,555.
Speaking to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper Wednesday, Colonel Pham Van Loan, a deputy director of the Hai Duong Police Department, said the provincial police will continue to investigate to identify each environmental police officer who did wrong and caused damages and force them to repay the department their own.
Of course we did not use the government budget to compensate [the fishermen], Col. Loan said, adding that it would have been illegal to do so.
The money was borrowed from a Hai Duong acquaintance now living in HCMC, said Colonel Cao Ngoc Lan, another deputy director of the Hai Duong police.
The VND650 million figure was agreed to at 8 p.m. Tuesday after more than six hours of negotiations between the Hai Duong police and the 17 octopus traders representing the Can Gio fishermen, Lan said.
By 9:15 p.m., the traders had received the money for over 1.8 tons of octopi after deducting the weight of packing materials from the original count, which was over two tons, Tuoi Tre reported.
Lan said the environmental police who seized the octopi batch had been careless and negligent.
The provincial police will also punish the director and deputy director of the environmental police force for their management, together with the officers who directly made the seizure, according to Loan.
Nguyen Van Dong, a fisherman in Can Thanh District, said: We only thought that [we] filed complaints to vent our frustration, and did not dream of receiving compensation.
2008 by Thanhniennews.com