In January, on the online community, an image of a building being built in the middle of Cu Hill in Da Lat city spread. Cu Hill is a natural highlight in the heart of Da Lat city, next to the poetic Xuan Huong Lake.
It is unknown whether this building has a construction permit or not, but in the immediate future, it will destroy Cu Hill, which is famous for its charming landscape in the heart of Da Lat city. That is the building of Doi Cu Da Lat Golf Club. This building blocked the symbol of Langbiang Mountain, making public angry.
Only then did the press reveal that this building was built illegally. In a country where people just need to pour a truckload of sand to repair their house, the local government officials will be there to take action immediately, but no one discovered a building lying in the middle of Cu Hill, blatantly built without a permit. That’s really strange.
Strongly criticized by public opinion, the People’s Committee of Da Lat city fined the managing unit VND240 million ($10,000) for illegally constructing the Golf Club building, and there was an unauthorized construction item. After the fine, the investor was forced to stop construction and wait for additional permits before continuing.
In fact, the fine of VND240 million on the managing unit is just to deal with public opinion. Some people in the construction industry said that the investor had the green light from the city government, so he dared to do it. It’s just that public opinion was so strong that they imposed sanctions to deal with it.
Most of the newspapers writing about this project refer to the “managing unit” in general terms, rather than the name of the enterprise and its head. That’s enough to see, what is the power of this character?
The owner of the Doi Cu Da Lat Golf Club building project is Hoang Gia DL Joint Stock Company. This business is the owner of the 5-star Dalat Palace Heritage Hotel (formerly Sofitel Dalat Palace), the 4-star Du Parc Hotel Dalat (formerly Novotel Dalat); and Dalat Golf Club golf course.
It is known that the founding shareholder of Hoang Gia DL Joint Stock Company is beauty contest runner-up Duong Truong Thien Ly, a very young beauty from Dong Thap. She was born in 1989, which means she is only 35 years old. This nice girl owns 78% of the shares in Hoang Gia DL.
In addition to Hoang Gia DL, Thien Ly has been contributing capital to establish or own many other related businesses. She is a founding shareholder and owns 85% of the capital contribution at Saigon Universe Joint Stock Company, which has owned the copyright of the Miss Universe Vietnam contest for the past 15 years. She is also a founding shareholder of Rong Ngoc Joint Stock Company, with 80% of charter capital. The company’s main business lines are consulting, brokerage, real estate auctions, and land use rights auctions. But now, Thien Ly has divested all capital at Rong Ngoc Joint Stock Company. Previously, Thien Ly owned 99.94% of the capital contribution at Pacific Dragon Limited Liability Company, before transferring all capital contribution to others in 2013.
Runner-up contest Thien Ly also owned Quoc Anh NT Limited Liability Company, a business established in 2012, headquartered in Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province, main industry is construction.
In addition to real estate, Thien Ly also ventured into the field of education, contributing capital to establish Wisdomland Education Limited Liability Company in 2016. This business owns a system of 5 international preschools in Saigon. She still holds 50% of the capital contribution at Wisdomland.
That is what Thien Ly has. Along with huge assets and strong influence, she has terrible relationships with government officials. Collusion of money power is indispensable among interest groups. Because of such collusion, she built a giant building without permission, but the Da Lat government still ignored it.
