How to control the assets and income of people in power?

Controlling the income and assets of those in power will be meaningless if there is no control over the flow of money and assets in society.

Controlling assets and income not only helps in the fight against corruption but also prevents money laundering, tax evasion, usury, evasion of civil judgment enforcement, cross-ownership of banks, illegal asset transfers, etc. With so many dual benefits, how should asset and income control measures be implemented to be effective? This is the content that experts are interested in proposing.

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Declaring assets and income of officials and civil servants is considered an effective measure to control the situation, but the implementation of regulations is formal and perfunctory. Mr. Nguyen Khac Chanh, former Chief Inspector of Nam Dinh province, said that the implementation of legal regulations is often problematic: "Declaration is important, but people do not know. There are many declarations but little verification, confidential documents, only when assigned are verified or when there is a complaint or denunciation are verified. We do not have regulations, so we do not randomly find work to do. Regulations on asset declaration are not voluntary, still formal. The declarations are not accurate".

Mr. Bui Ngoc Thanh, former head of the National Assembly Office, suggested: "I think it should be public and after a term, the declaration should be re-declared and from there we can see how clean and honest the officials are, how honest they are, and whether there is corruption. If there is no inspection and transparency, things will continue to be messy. The leaders and superiors at a level must have clearer responsibilities in ensuring whether the organization of the declaration is strict or not."

According to experts, controlling the assets and income of people in positions of power will become meaningless if the flow of money or assets in society cannot be controlled. This has been explained by many major corruption cases, where most of the corrupt assets have been transferred to relatives or even abroad.

Therefore, determining the responsibility to explain the origin of assets and income is not only for those in positions of authority but for anyone. That means, any citizen must be ready to answer or explain to the competent state agency about a certain amount of money or property that the agency finds to have signs of abnormality. To do that, it is necessary to pay more attention to creating tools to control the entire society such as through tax tools, using all payments through accounts, and limiting cash.

Regarding the obligation to explain the origin of additional assets, we are currently facing difficulties because it is very difficult to determine the income outside of the salary of officials and civil servants. Mr. Ngo Manh Hung, Deputy Director of the Anti-Corruption Department, Government Inspectorate, said that some measures need to be noted when implementing: "To perfect the regime of controlling income and assets, large-value expenditures must go through accounts, additional assets must be explained for all those with positions and powers, and it is necessary to create a mechanism to confiscate illegal assets. For example, in Indonesia, if the transaction is normal, the state has the obligation to prove it, but with large transactions worth tens of billions, the obligation to prove must be the person with the assets".

Experts also recommend increasing the independence of anti-corruption agencies with effective monitoring mechanisms. At the same time, the law needs to create a stronger enforcement mechanism with the ability to apply sanctions and stipulate cases where confiscation of criminal assets can be applied without necessarily being based on a criminal sentence./.

According to VOV