Suspicion of 'group interests' and 'backyards' is well-founded

Through a number of major cases and recent inspection results of the Central Inspection Commission, it is shown that voters' suspicions about 'group interests' and 'backyards' are well-founded.

This is the assessment of the Judiciary Committee when examining the Government's Report on anti-corruption work in 2017, presented to the National Assembly Standing Committee this morning (September 19).

Oceanbank's gift giving and commission payment at VN Pharma cause outrage

The Judiciary Committee's review report said that the review agency agreed with the Government's assessment of the results achieved in detecting and handling corruption.

Under the timely and resolute direction of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption, a number of serious and complicated economic and corruption cases have been investigated, prosecuted and strictly tried, contributing to strengthening people's trust in the determination to fight corruption of our Party and State.

However, the audit agency also assessed that some corruption prevention measures are still formal and ineffective. Administrative procedure reform in some areas has not yet been effective.

14th Session of the National Assembly Standing Committee

Regarding asset declaration, in 2017 the number of declarations was very large, but only 77 people/1,113,422 people who declared (accounting for 0.007%) were verified. The verification results detected 3 violations, a significant decrease compared to previous years.

Meanwhile, according to the press and voters' reports, there are still many cases of dishonest declaration of assets and income that are not detected or handled; the explanation of the origin of additional assets in some cases is still unreasonable, even offensive, causing public outrage.

According to the Chairwoman of the Judicial Committee, Le Thi Nga, in reality, giving gifts to resolve work and bribery in the form of giving gifts still occurs very complicatedly, in many forms. Returning gifts is almost always done only after violations are discovered.

Through a number of recent trials, public opinion is very upset about the gift-giving of Oceanbank and the payment of commissions to doctors by VN Pharma Joint Stock Company... The Judicial Committee believes that this is a major issue, related to professional ethics, public service ethics and anti-corruption that needs to be assessed and studied by the Government to have regulations to prevent this situation.

Specifically, the report cited information from the press saying that in the smuggling case that occurred at VN Pharma Joint Stock Company, the defendants confessed to paying "commissions" to doctors at many hospitals up to 7.5 billion VND to get doctors to prescribe medicine for patients.

In the major case at Oceanbank, Mr. Ninh Van Quynh admitted and returned 20 billion VND he had received from Nguyen Xuan Son. The investigation agency seized 64 envelopes with a total of nearly 1 billion VND, the bribe money from businesses, at the home of Nguyen Truong Duy, a Ho Chi Minh City Customs officer.

Proposing the Government to conduct a general inspection of the appointment of officials nationwide

The Judiciary Committee also agreed with the Government's assessment of the shortcomings, limitations, and causes in anti-corruption work and said that currently, the enforcement of the law in general and the law on anti-corruption in particular is not strict.

The awareness and ethics of public service of a number of cadres and civil servants are still limited; harassment, negativity, and bribery in the process of handling work of people and businesses still occur;“Some government officials still act in a way that causes scandal for the system due to corruption and group interests.

The report also frankly pointed out that some officials and civil servants still show signs of assisting and protecting businesses.

“In the past, the situation of “group interests” and “backyards” was only a suspicion of voters, but through a number of major cases brought to trial recently, through the inspection results of the Central Inspection Committee, it shows that voters’ suspicions are well-founded” – the assessment report.

From the above comments, the Judiciary Committee recommends that the National Assembly and the Government should develop regulations on controlling assets and income of everyone in the whole society; continue to improve regulations on transparency and control of assets and income of people with positions and powers, especially the contents of inspection, supervision, verification of declaration, accountability for increases and decreases in assets, expenditures, and transactions of great value; clearly stipulate sanctions for those who declare assets dishonestly.

The Government has directed a general inspection of the appointment of officials nationwide to respond to public opinion about the situation of appointing officials to leadership and management positions not in accordance with regulations, appointing more leaders than civil servants, and arranging relatives to positions prone to corruption./.

According to VOV