'Failure to recover assets means ineffective anti-corruption'

Legal experts say that if corruption is dealt with without recovering assets, it means the fight against corruption is ineffective.

In the past 10 years, the recovery of corrupt assets has only reached less than 10%. This information has shocked public opinion. VOV reporter interviewed Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh - Director of the ASEAN Institute for Law and Economics.

Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh. Photo: Thanh Nien

PV:Sir, the assets damaged by corruption amounted to nearly 60,000 billion VND, but we have only recovered 8%. This has been causing public disappointment. Many people think that we are powerless against corrupt assets, sir?

Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh:The fight against corruption in any country must achieve the goal of eradicating corruption and the effectiveness of eradicating corruption must be the recovery of corrupt assets.

If the assets are not recovered, it seems like we are sending a message that corruption is fine, anyway, you will get a huge amount of assets and the forms of discipline and prosecution will be very light. I am old, I try to be corrupt to consolidate a large source of assets for my children in the future, and I am willing to accept the punishment.

PV:For corrupt assets, recovery is natural, so why have we recovered these assets with such low results in the past, sir?

Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh: I think that the anti-corruption agencies are struggling with ineffective procedures. Corrupt assets are criminal assets, however, if we think like that, we have to wait for the court's verdict to proceed with the recovery of corrupt assets, which is too slow.

In other countries, if there are signs that an official has unusually large assets compared to his current income and cannot prove the assets, they will immediately freeze those assets to clarify what kind of assets they are, whether they are legal, transparent, or assets obtained through corruption?

Once the asset is frozen, the next procedures to verify and trace the origin of the asset will be much easier. If we wait for the verdict to be completed before continuing to carry out the task of seizing the asset, it will be too late, and the dissipation of the asset will naturally occur very easily.

PV:You mentioned freezing assets when the assets are abnormal. So in case the assets are transferred or dispersed abroad, how do we pursue them, sir?

Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh: Tracing assets is not a difficult problem. In all specialized laws, there are many provisions that can allow us to determine what the assets are. Of course, if tracing only stops at the assets of that subject, it is meaningless, because they can declare that it is the assets of their children.

For example, many officials were bribed by businesses with apartments, of course the official did not own the apartment, but this is not difficult to trace. Review all the accounting documents of the business to see how the sale of the apartments took place. I think it is difficult to completely cover up all the violations of the law.

PV:We do not lack mechanisms and policies to prevent asset dissipation, sir?

Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh: Our system can completely allow for asset tracing, the problem is whether the person doing it will pursue it to the end or not. For example, in the case of Mr. Pham Sy Quy in Yen Bai, it took us 6-7 months to trace the assets, but did we trace them? It is absurd that a villa built on converted land like that, but almost no law violations can be determined here.

PV:In the context of anti-corruption being hot as it is now and causing a lot of public outrage, what advice do you have for recovering corrupt assets in the most thorough way?

Prof. Dr. Le Hong Hanh:To thoroughly recover corrupt assets, especially to perfect the institution by building an anti-corruption law, it is necessary to focus on several main points, which are: Do not let it overlap or trample on other provisions of specialized laws.

This law must aim at recovering assets, declaring assets, and then based on the asset declaration, based on the abnormal manifestations in the income and assets of people in positions, from there, it will be frozen. When the criminal conditions are found to be sufficient, then turn to apply the Penal Code to prosecute corruption crimes according to regulations. If this cannot be done, the recovered assets will not be effective.

PV: Thank you sir./.