Finding a way to handle nearly 1,800 cubic meters of wood and firewood in Nam Giang

A wood yard is being gathered in La Dee commune. Photo: VINH LOC

Low quality wood

On October 25, 2024, the People's Committee of Nam Giang district approved the plan to auction state assets for wood and firewood exploited from the 500kV Monsoon - Thanh My transmission line project (section in Vietnam) and the 220kV Dak Ooc switching station project and 220kV lines connecting the Nam Emoun hydropower plant (Laos) to the Vietnam power system passing through Nam Giang district, with a total quantity of more than 1,470m3 of wood and nearly 323m3 of firewood. All are being gathered in La Dee commune (3 yards) and Ta Po commune (1 yard).

On October 30, 2024, the Nam Giang District Valuation Council conducted a field inspection and assessed the quality, determined the value of the exploited wood and firewood at the two projects, and unanimously approved the starting price to organize the sale of state assets for the total volume of wood and firewood of about 4.2 billion VND (wood over 4 billion VND and firewood over 203 million VND).

After the decision to approve the starting price was made, the Nam Giang Protective Forest Management Board was assigned to carry out the work of organizing the asset auction through the Quang Nam Joint Stock Financial and Price Auction Company.

This unit has widely announced the auction on mass media, set the time for selling documents and submitting auction documents from December 23, 2024 to January 7, 2025. However, after the prescribed time, there were still no customers registering to participate in the auction.

On January 20, 2025, Quang Nam Joint Stock Company for Finance and Price Auction continued to announce the second auction of assets but there were still no customers registering. On February 14, 2025, this unit continued to announce the third auction of assets but there were still no customers participating in purchasing the documents.

Faced with this situation, the Nam Giang District Asset Valuation Council conducted a site inspection, re-determined the quality and value of the wood and firewood, and agreed to lower the starting price to more than 3 billion VND (wood about 2.835 billion VND and firewood 174 million VND). However, after 2 auction announcements (April 4, 2025 and April 28, 2025), there were still no customers buying the auction documents for the above wood and firewood.

According to Mr. Nguyen Dang Chuong - Vice Chairman of Nam Giang District People's Committee, the reason why customers are not interested in this amount of wood and firewood is because the quality of mixed wood and the size of the wood do not meet the needs of customers.

In addition, most of the wood is not straight and has a diameter of less than 40cm, the age of the wood is young, and the use value is not high, which also makes buyers not interested. Not to mention, the wood gathering grounds are too far away, the traffic system is difficult, especially the National Highway 14D is seriously damaged, affecting transportation, pushing up the cost... so after 5 times of posting auctions, although people came to see the wood, no customer bought the documents.

Most of the wood and firewood auctioned is of low quality. Photo: VINH LOC

Continue to lower prices for auction

Mr. Nguyen Dang Chuong said that, in order to avoid loss of state assets, the Provincial People's Committee and departments and branches should consider continuing to give opinions on reducing the amount by 25% compared to the second starting price, or have a policy to allow auctioning all wood at the same price as the firewood price that has been priced, or can continue to evaluate and determine the quality of wood (firewood) according to the current ratio to develop a price plan according to regulations.

On June 2, the People's Committee of Nam Giang district sent a document to the provincial Department of Finance and the provincial Department of Agriculture and Environment asking for policies and instructions on the auction of wood and firewood exploited from the 500kV Monsoon - Thanh My transmission line project and the 220kV Dak Ooc switching station project and 220kV transmission lines in order to soon auction public assets, avoiding loss of state assets.

On June 5, the Department of Finance sent a document to the People's Committee of Nam Giang district requesting the People's Committee to urgently re-organize the auction according to the provisions of law.

In which, attention should be paid to determining the reason for the unsuccessful auction; in case the reason is determined to be due to the high starting price, no longer consistent with the market price, then consider and decide to re-determine the starting price to re-organize the auction.

Mr. Nguyen Dang Chuong informed that after re-evaluating the value of the wood, it was found that the quality of the wood and firewood had decreased compared to before, so the District Appraisal Council decided to reduce the starting price to about 2.2 billion VND. Currently, the bidding information has been posted on the media for more than 10 days but there have been no interested customers.

“The district has also proposed using this wood to support the demolition of temporary houses in the area, but due to legal regulations, it cannot be implemented. We are drafting an official dispatch to ask for opinions from relevant departments and the Provincial People's Committee to continue to assign the (new) commune or some other agency to take over and handle this issue after July 1 when the district-level government ceases to operate,” said Mr. Chuong.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/tim-huong-xu-ly-gan-1-800-khoi-go-cui-o-nam-giang-3157318.html