A group of officials who took advantage of policies for people with meritorious services are about to appear in court.

Taking advantage of the policy of supporting people with revolutionary contributions to improve their housing by changing land use purposes and exempting land use fees in accordance with the spirit of Decision 118 of the Prime Minister, many officials of Tra Vinh City deliberately violated the policy, colluding with "land brokers" to profit from the State budget.

Taking advantage of policies for people with meritorious services, legalizing documents to benefit.

The story of taking advantage of policies for people with meritorious services in Tra Vinh has been going on for nearly ten years, causing public outrage, especially in Tra Vinh City. In many cases, people with meritorious services to the revolution, due to economic difficulties and not understanding state policies, were deceived by "land brokers" and "paid" insignificantly.

Huynh Cong Chuc - one of the "land brokers" who made a lot of money from the state budget fraud. Photo: Tra Vinh Police

As in the case of Mr. HVD's household in Long Duc commune, Tra Vinh city, a 3/4 war invalid with a 45% disability, taking advantage of being neighbors and acquaintances who were facing difficulties, "land broker" Huynh Cong Chuc lured war invalid D to "sell his name" for only 12 million VND, so that Mr. D could have his name on Chuc's 300m2 agricultural land plot.

Mr. HVD said that all the procedures were done by Huynh Cong Chuc, he just went to the notary office to sign the land ownership. After signing the land ownership, Chuc quickly completed the procedures to convert to urban residential land and was exempted from 75% tax. However, Mr. D. did not know the exact amount.

In the case of Vietnamese Heroic Mother PTH in Long Duc commune, Tra Vinh city, a land broker also took advantage of her name to carry out procedures for land use fee exemption and reduction and profited nearly 700 million VND. When asked about the above land sale and transfer, PTH's mother asserted that she had no knowledge.

The way the profiteering group does this is by searching for and enticing families of martyrs and war invalids in difficult circumstances to "sell their names" to carry out procedures for buying and selling, transferring land, and enjoying preferential treatment of land use purpose conversion fees. There are even many cases where names are "sold" and falsely signed on the sale contract without knowing it. Accordingly, from agricultural land in the owner's name, a transfer contract is made to a policy family. Then, the "land broker" takes the policy family's records to convert the land use purpose (to residential land) to receive tax exemptions and reductions. After being granted a Land Use Rights Certificate, the "land broker" borrows the hands of the policy family to donate or carry out transfer procedures to the real buyer. With this "magic" of turning agricultural land into residential land, the profiteering subject earns from several tens to several hundreds of millions of VND per record.

Knowing wrong, still deliberately doing wrong

In 2014, Diep Van Thanh, who held the position of Chairman of the People's Committee of Tra Vinh City, and Tran Truong Son, who was Vice Chairman, deliberately directed his subordinates to continue to violate regulations in implementing policies for people with meritorious services. Diep Van Thanh also signed two official dispatches directing the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the Tax Department, and the Land Use Registration Office of Tra Vinh City, with content contrary to the Prime Minister's decision, Circular 30 of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Official Dispatch of the Ministry of Finance, and the People's Committee of Tra Vinh Province.

In particular, at a meeting, there were opinions reflecting the current situation of "land brokers" taking advantage of policies for meritorious people, legalizing documents to gain benefits. Diep Van Thanh, in his role as Chairman of the People's Committee of Tra Vinh City, not only did not report to the Provincial People's Committee, did not direct corrections, but also continued to allow the exemption and reduction of the wrong subjects.

Diep Van Thanh (former Chairman of Tra Vinh City People's Committee) is the leader in the case of embezzlement of state budget in Tra Vinh City. Photo: Tra Vinh Police

In 2016, Le Huu Le, then Head of the Department, and Ly Kien Trung, Deputy Head of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, reported the situation of buying and selling regimes and policies, some "land brokers" colluding with "landowners", legalizing documents for changing land use purposes. Diep Van Thanh did not direct the correction but continued to implement and together with his deputy signed the procedures to decide on transferring land use purposes and exempting and reducing land use fees with many incorrect documents about the subjects, for a very long time.

In June 2019, the investigation agency initiated a criminal case and in August, prosecuted the defendants. Diep Van Thanh and Tran Truong Son were dismissed from their positions as Chairman and Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Tra Vinh City, respectively, for the above violations.

On July 1, 2020, the Investigation Police Agency of Tra Vinh Province completed the file and transferred it to the People's Procuracy of the same level to propose prosecuting the subjects including: Diep Van Thanh (former Chairman of Tra Vinh City People's Committee), Tran Truong Son (former Vice Chairman of Tra Vinh City); Nguyen Van Chien, Le Huu Le, Ly Kien Trung, Tran Thanh Son, Nguyen Trong Nghia, who are officials at the head, deputy head, and specialist levels of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Tra Vinh City; Lam Pho La, cadastral officer of Ward 7 and the group of "land brokers" and "landowners" Huynh Cong Chuc, Tran Muoi, Tran Thanh Vu, Le Hoang Anh, Tram Ngoc Long, Phu Thanh Tam, Trang Thi Xay for the crime of "Violating regulations on State asset management, causing loss".

Tran Truong Son (former Vice Chairman of Tra Vinh City People's Committee) at the time of his arrest.

According to the investigation conclusion, during their term in office, Diep Van Thanh and Tran Truong Son signed decisions to allow the transfer of land use purposes and exempt land use fees for 315 files, causing a loss of more than 70 billion VND. Of which, Diep Van Thanh signed 39 files, causing a loss of more than 10 billion VND; Tran Truong Son signed 276 files, causing a loss of more than 60 billion VND.

The investigation also proved that the defendants were leaders and specialists who colluded with "land brokers", falsified procedures, legalized documents to change the purpose of use, did not have to pay money, and took advantage of personal interests. In particular, the landowners who were not meritorious people took advantage of the policy to conduct civil transactions, evading land use fees when changing the purpose. The "land brokers" took advantage of preferential policies to profit from the purchase and sale of policies for people with meritorious services to the revolution.

This is a particularly serious case of loss and waste of state assets, causing public outrage in Tra Vinh for nearly ten years.