In the planning area of the Tea Island Tourist Area in Thanh An commune, at this time, the case of arbitrarily changing the land use purpose and illegally building a homestay on Khe Tro hill by Mr. Nguyen Sy Hoang Giap has received much attention from public opinion.
This chain of illegal homestays is built scattered over an area of several hectares. Close to the water surface of Cau Cau Lake, there is a guest house built with bricks and thatched roofs, decorated quite elegantly. From the guest house, there is a walking path along the lake with gray-white stones on smooth green grass, passing through fruit gardens to reach a chain of 5 independent guesthouses. These houses have an area of about 40m2.2, assembled from wood, plastic, aluminum, glass... placed on a series of reinforced concrete piles. The house has a unique design, with roofs and walls made of bright colored materials that stand out against the green background of the grass and acacia forest. Each house is fully equipped with amenities, with its own winding stone entrance along the slope, quite elaborate and beautiful.
Along with independent houses, Khe Tro hill homestay also has some houses, ornamental plants, and solar panels. At the same time, in the hill area, some walking paths have been formed with smooth grass surfaces; there are camping grounds for outdoor entertainment and dining; many areas of land have been newly planted with some types of timber trees...
On June 11, 2022, the illegal construction of a homestay on Khe Tro hill was discovered, inspected and handled by the Thanh An commune authorities. At this time, the entire project only had 5 unfinished motels. However, just over 1 month later, on July 14, 2022, based on citizens' feedback, the Thanh Chuong District People's Committee organized an inspection. At this time, the 5 motels had all been completed and put into use. Faced with that reality, on July 15, in Document No. 1489/UBND-TNMT, Thanh Chuong District People's Committee criticized the Chairman of Thanh An Commune People's Committee for "not being resolute and not taking measures to promptly prevent and handle the above-mentioned violation according to regulations", and assigned Thanh An Commune People's Committee to "continue to inspect, take measures to prevent and handle the above-mentioned violation according to regulations of law; absolutely not let violators continue to commit violations"; "organize a serious review to clarify the responsibilities of the collective and individuals involved".
However, since the beginning of 2023, Thanh Chuong District People's Committee has inspected the illegal construction of homestays on Khe Tro Hill twice. In the inspection according to Decision No. 308/QD-UBND dated February 13, 2023, the interdisciplinary inspection team of Thanh Chuong District recorded that the total number of illegal constructions on Khe Tro Hill had jumped to 12. In the inspection on July 3, 2023, it was discovered that Khe Tro Hill homestay had 3 additional greenhouses.
Perhaps because the "famous" homestay on Khe Tro hill has become a "model", some people who were assigned the right to use land in the tea hill area of Cau Cau lake, in Thanh Thinh commune, "followed the example". The evidence is that from June 2023 to present, the People's Committee of Thanh Thinh commune has discovered, inspected, and recorded 3 cases of violations of arbitrarily changing the purpose of using forestry land, illegal construction, and digging up tea hill soil to make dams to block the lake bed.
The first incident was discovered by the People's Committee of Thanh Thinh commune, and a record was made on June 14, 2023; the violators were Mr. Nguyen Duong Thoa and Ms. Dang Thi Kim Ngoc. 12 reinforced concrete pillars were built (underground); cement mortar was spread on the ground with a width of 4.5m, length of 10.6m, total construction area of more than 47.7m22on forestry land plot No. 736, 735, map sheet No. 01, in Phong Thinh hamlet. The second incident was discovered by the People's Committee of Thanh Thinh commune and Thanh Chuong Irrigation Company Limited, and a record was made on July 13, 2023; the violator was Mr. Nguyen Van Chien, who was hiring workers to build a project (including 3 iron frames with a width of 2.5m x 2.5m, each iron frame has 3 supporting piles of 90mm diameter iron) on Cau Cau lake, in Phong Thinh hamlet. The third incident was discovered by the People's Committee of Thanh Thinh commune and Thanh Chuong Irrigation Company Limited, and a record was made on July 15; the violator was Mr. Tran Dinh Nhan, residing in Phong Thinh hamlet. Mr. Tran Dinh Nhan carried out the act of scooping up his family's tea hill to build a dam to block Cau Cau lake.
It should be added that, like the illegal construction of a homestay on Khe Tro hill, violations in Thanh Thinh commune are showing signs of being dragged on, prolonged, and slow to be resolved. In the case of Mr. Nguyen Duong Thoa, the People's Committee of Thanh Thinh commune invited him to the office to work on August 1, 2023, but he was absent. In the case of Mr. Nguyen Van Chien, on August 1 and 2, based on citizen feedback, the inspection team of the People's Committee discovered that 6 additional structures had been built using iron frames measuring 2.5m wide x 2.5m long, and 2m high. As for Mr. Tran Dinh Nhan, although he was aware that building a dam to block Cau Cau lake was a violation of the law, so far there has been no action to restore the lake to its original state...
In the case of illegal construction of a homestay on Khe Tro hill, Thanh An commune, after the inspection on February 13, 2023, the interdisciplinary inspection team reported to the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district: "For the case of citizen Nguyen Sy Hoang Giap building illegal works on forestry land in Khe Tro, Thanh An commune, the responsibility belongs to the People's Committee of the commune, the Chairman of the People's Committee of the commune and the cadastral officials of Thanh An commune, because they did not comply with the provisions of Clause 2, Article 208 of the Land Law, specifically: Not applying measures to prevent and promptly handle the construction of works on land used for the wrong purpose in the locality". From the inspection report, the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district directed the People's Committee of Thanh An commune to review and clarify the responsibilities of relevant collectives and individuals; at the same time, assigned the Department of Internal Affairs to advise the People's Committee of the district to handle the responsibilities of relevant collectives and individuals for the existence of problems and violations.
And what had to happen happened, on July 14, 2023, Thanh Chuong District People's Committee issued Decision No. 1619/QD-UBND and Decision No. 1620/QD-UBND to discipline the Chairman of the People's Committee and the cadastral officer of Thanh An commune. Mr. Nguyen Canh Nam - Chairman of Thanh An Commune People's Committee was disciplined with a reprimand for "imposing administrative sanctions without proper authority"; Mr. Nguyen Canh Dung - cadastral, agricultural, construction and environmental officer was disciplined with a reprimand for "advising on administrative sanctions without proper authority".
As an officer advising the District People's Committee to establish a Disciplinary Council to consider disciplining officials in Thanh An commune, Head of the Internal Affairs Department Nguyen Cao Thanh affirmed that, based on the reports of the inspection teams, the consideration of disciplining the two officials above was appropriate. However, Mr. Nguyen Cao Thanh also expressed his sympathy for the difficulties that Thanh An commune officials are facing, because the Cau Cau mixed-use tourism, service and resort project has not been implemented for many years.
“The incident in Thanh An commune originated from objective causes. However, to let the violations recur and last for a long time, state management officials cannot shirk their responsibility. Based on the reports of the inspection team, the Department of Internal Affairs has advised the District People's Committee to establish a Disciplinary Council to consider and take disciplinary action against the Chairman of the People's Committee and the cadastral officers of Thanh An commune. The Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh An commune is a Party member managed by the Standing Committee of the District Party Committee, so the District People's Committee has sent a report to the District Party Committee, so that the District Party Committee can consider taking disciplinary action in accordance with the Party's regulations...", Head of the Department of Internal Affairs Nguyen Cao Thanh added.
On the visit to the Tea Island Tourist Area planning area on July 19, we were accompanied by Thanh An commune officials, including Mr. Nguyen Doan Truat - Head of the Cultural Department, and Mr. Nguyen Canh Dung - Land Officer. According to these two officials, the state management work of the authorities of Thanh An and Thanh Thinh communes in the past few years has been very difficult, under a lot of pressure, and prone to risks.
According to the Head of the Commune Culture Committee, Nguyen Doan Truat, Cienco4 has "suspended" the project for many years, while the Tea Island area has a need to develop various types of tourism services, so many extremely inappropriate problems have arisen in the area. "Not only is there arbitrary conversion of land use purposes and illegal construction of resort facilities, but even the transportation of passengers visiting Tea Island by boat on Cau Cau Lake also has many complicated problems, with the risk of insecurity always present. Regarding the investors that the province has identified, we see that they are not interested. The project has not been implemented for a long time, and until now, the investor has not returned, so the commune is very worried..." - said Mr. Nguyen Doan Truat.
According to Nguyen Canh Dung, a cadastral officer of Thanh An commune, in addition to performing professional tasks, the staff of Thanh An commune also has to do many unnamed tasks related to the Tea Island area. They have to work on holidays, Tet, Saturdays and Sundays, but risks can still occur. “The project is suspended, while the land in the planning area has not been recovered or cleared. Tourists coming here have a need for relaxation. Understanding the tourists' psychology, people have arbitrarily changed the purpose of land use to illegally build works, which is very difficult to manage. Because of the pressure of work, I have thought that one day I might quit my job…” – Mr. Nguyen Canh Dung said sadly.
Also on July 19, we were received by the Secretary of the Thanh An Commune Party Committee - Mr. Nguyen Danh Duyen. In the first sentence, Mr. Duyen talked about the District People's Committee's disciplinary action against Thanh An Commune officials, acknowledging that the disciplinary action against the two officials, the Chairman of the People's Committee and the land official, was appropriate. But Party Secretary Nguyen Danh Duyen also confided: Within the planning scope of the Tea Island Tourist Area, there were a number of individuals who received the transfer of land use rights from the people. These people then arbitrarily changed the land use purpose, built works for tourism services, causing the commune to face many difficulties in management. Faced with this situation, the commune reported to the superiors, and when violations were discovered, they also organized inspections and handling. But the violations still recurred and lasted...
Thanh An Commune Party Secretary Nguyen Danh Duyen said: “As the first level of state management in the locality, the Commune People’s Committee and related officials must take responsibility for the existence and prolongation of violations. But in my opinion, we need to strictly handle the case of illegal homestay construction on Khe Tro hill and the situation of suspended projects. Only then can all existing problems be resolved…”.