Nghe An must recover hundreds of billions of dong in wrongful benefits for war invalids

"If you want the regime, you have to run"

Nghe An Provincial Police have just prosecuted and temporarily detained Nguyen Phuc Hong (64 years old, Nam Thai Commune, Nam Dan) to investigate the act of Fraudulent appropriation of property. Hong is an important link in the war invalid trafficking ring led by Ta Thi Van (Hung Binh Ward, Vinh City).

This “henchman” was accused of receiving more than 260 sets of documents and more than 8 billion VND to “run” the war invalid and Agent Orange regimes for those in need. He then enjoyed the difference of billions of VND. However, before being arrested, Mr. Hong admitted to a reporter from Nghe An Newspaper that among the more than 260 people who asked him to “run” the regime, not a single one was injured. “No one was injured, just joining the army is enough,” Mr. Hong said.

Van's wounded soldier escape ring has more than 1,200 people falling into its trap with the mentality of "if you want a regime, you have to run". Photo: Tien Hung

As an investigator of the largest war invalid trafficking ring ever, Captain Phan Thanh Hai (Police Investigation Office, Nghe An Police), said that although the legal policies so far have basically met and created conditions for identifying and recognizing the right beneficiaries, there are still many errors and negative aspects in the implementation process, leading to many individuals making false declarations to take advantage of the policy.

Meanwhile, there are also people who have truly contributed but do not have enough documents to prove their merit according to regulations, so up to now they have not received any benefits. From this reality, individuals who do not have enough documents to prove their merit and individuals who are not injured but want to benefit from the policy have a negative mentality of "if you want to enjoy the policy, you have to run".

Veterans in Nghe An go to fill out paperwork to receive benefits. Photo: Tien Hung

Taking advantage of this psychology of the people, many subjects have used the trick of making promises, knowing many people, being able to "run" from there to receive money, documents and then take their money. As in the case of Ta Thi Van, with the "perfect cover" of having a husband working in the army, through a series of "henchmen", this woman has collected more than 1,200 documents of the people and then "ran away". Van's line has been operating for a long time, from 2011 to 2016, when it was discovered and the number of victims may increase in the coming time because the investigation agency is still issuing notices to find victims.

This is an act of a particularly serious nature and level, affecting the reputation of the authorities, especially the agency responsible for reviewing policies for people with meritorious services; causing resentment and bad public opinion among the people, affecting the people's trust in the Party and the State in implementing policies, especially the trust of those who have fought to protect the Fatherland and have made contributions to the country; causing billions of dong in damage to the people.

Sadly, involved in this network are “henchmen” who used to be key leaders of the commune, and there are also victims who are retired cadres and officers. They are people who understand the law, have knowledge but because of greed or the mentality of “wanting to enjoy the regime, you have to run” they were drawn into this network.

Difficult to recover money

Ms. Ho Thi Chau Loan - Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Nghe An province said that after checking 21 districts, cities and towns in Nghe An, the inspectors of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs discovered 569 cases of war invalids receiving incorrect benefits. These cases were determined to be false declarations, forged documents or not being named in the original list of wounded soldiers kept at the unit. However, this is only the number of fake war invalids discovered in 2018. Previously, in 2017, hundreds of other cases were also discovered to be fake.

Strictly implementing the above conclusion of the Ministry, the People's Committee of Nghe An province has issued a plan to classify and collect money from subjects who have received wrongly. The Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Nghe An has immediately suspended the subsidy regime of 568 war invalids, and at the same time recovered the amount of money that the subjects have received wrongly into the state budget.

The amount of money that the subjects have received wrongly must be recovered is more than 118 billion VND. On average, each person has received from about 120 million VND to more than 200 million VND over the past 10 years. The Nghe An Provincial Military Command also notified each subject of the file violations in writing, revoked the injury certificate, decided to issue the injury certificate and disability allowance.

War invalids at the Mental Health Care Center for War Invalids in Nghi Phong. Photo courtesy

Ms. Loan assessed that it is very difficult to recover the money that the subjects have wrongly received, because most of the subjects are old, weak, in difficult circumstances or have passed away. Currently, there are still no sanctions to handle cases of not returning the money.

"According to the spirit of Resolution 119 of the Government, those who have passed away will not be recovered. The remaining subjects must be recovered, but the province has not been able to collect much. The difficulty here is that the subjects have received monthly allowances for many years, but the recovery plan requires the subjects to pay back the amount from the time they started receiving it until it was stopped. Most of these subjects are old and weak, with no source of income," said Ms. Loan.

Of that amount of more than 100 billion VND, up to now, the Nghe An Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has only been able to collect more than 2.2 billion VND. In addition, 66 beneficiaries have passed away, so it is impossible to collect more than 6 billion VND. "Currently, we are assigning localities to classify each beneficiary to recover the money with a determined and serious spirit," Ms. Loan affirmed.

The war invalids proposed for recall are mostly elderly and have difficult lives. Photo: Tien Hung

Speaking to a reporter from Nghe An Newspaper, an officer from the Department of Meritorious People (Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Nghe An) said that recovering this amount of money will be very difficult. “The amount of money that the beneficiaries have received for a long time, now the amount to be recovered is large, many cases are unable to pay it back. The beneficiaries who must be recovered basically have no income, most of them are in rural areas without pensions, living dependent on their children. Even if we try hard, we can only get 25 cases,” he said.