The site where illegal stone mining took place at Dak Kut Quarry in Gia Nghia Town’s Dak Tan Village. (Photo: VNA) Dak Nong (VNA) - Illegal stone mining activities have been going onsince April in Đak Nong province’s Đak Kut Quarry, but no action has been takenagainst violators.
Last month, afterVietnam News Agency (VNA) published multiple reports on illegal quarrying atĐak Kut Quarry in Gia Nghia town’s Đak Tan village, the provincial People’sCommittee set up a special working group to look into the issue.
A decision signed byTruong Thanh Tung, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, said thegroup would include leaders of the provincial natural resources and environmentdepartment, the provincial police and the people’s committees of Gia Nghia townand Dak Nia commune. Dam Quang Trung, Director of the provincial NaturalResources and Environment Department, was appointed head of the group.
The group was asked toinspect the quarry and figure out what illegal mining was being done, thoseinvolved in the activity as well as the responsibilities of the various Stateagencies in the incident. It was to hand over its report to the People’sCommittee before December 20.
On December 20, however,when the working group held a meeting to share its assessment and offersolutions, representatives of the provincial police department and Gia Nghia town’sPeople’s Committee were absent.
At the meeting, theworking group asked related authorities to work with representatives of DuyQuang Commerce JSC, the alleged violator, before December 30 to define thecompany’s illegal mining activity and come up with appropriate punishments. Italso asked Gia Nghia and Dak Nia authorities to report on the responsibilitiesof those involved in the case before December 26, and asked the provincialpolice department to report on the two trucks carrying stones that were seizedin September. However, so far, the group has received no responses.
The working group hasalso asked the provincial authority to postpone the deadline of the finalreport to January 15, saying that the incident was “complicated” and “neededtime to be resolved”.
Last October, the VNAreported illegal mining in Đak Tan village, which is around a kilometre from DakNia commune’s People’s Committee office. Stones were piled up two to threemetres high and spread over 0.5m in the quarry. A group of five workers were seenworking with machines and loading stones in trucks.
Hoang Van Ten, head of DakTan village, said that stone quarrying had been going on since last April,making the area noisy and dusty, and damaging the village roads.
When VNA reporters askedDong Quang Huy, chairman of the Peopౠle’s Committee, he said the committee hadno idea who was behind the illegal quarrying.-VNA
