Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee talks about the phenomenon of commune cadastral officers avoiding people and receiving brokers

The problem of red book brokers

In Thanh Chuong district, "red book brokers" (Land use rights certificate) is determined to exist, and this is an existence that causes frustration and reduces people's trust in the Party Committee and government. Specifically, at the 5th Session, the People's Council of Thanh Chuong district, term XX, questioned the content:“The work of granting land use right certificates in the past has had many limitations. There are still cases of officials harassing and not providing adequate guidance to the people; coordination between relevant responsible agencies is not good, leading to errors, having to return documents, prolonged processing, people having to travel many times, to many places; the phenomenon of “Brokers granting land use right certificates” still occurs... The above limitations cause frustration, reduce the trust of voters and people. What are the causes, responsibilities and solutions for the coming time?”.

Ngoc Son Commune is a locality where a land official has violated the law and is being detained to serve the investigation. Photo: Nhat Lan

After the questioning session, in Conclusion No. 68/KL-HĐND dated July 21, 2022, Thanh Chuong District People's Council acknowledged that the District People's Committee, relevant agencies, departments, branches and People's Committees of communes and towns have focused on directing, guiding and resolving difficulties and problems in the work of granting Certificates to households and individuals; paying attention to directing administrative reform in the field of land, the work of granting land use right certificates to people has made positive progress.

However, it was also commented:“Reality shows that the work of granting Land Use Right Certificates in the past has had many limitations. There are still cases of officials harassing and not providing adequate guidance to the people; coordination between relevant responsible agencies is not good, leading to errors, having to return documents, prolonged processing, people having to travel many times, to many places; the phenomenon of “Brokers granting Land Use Right Certificates” still occurs... The above limitations cause frustration and undermine the trust of voters and people.”

From there, there is a request:

“The District People's Committee inspects and considers the responsibility of the Chairmen of the People's Committees of communes and towns, and leaders of relevant sectors when the situation of limitations and weaknesses in granting land use right certificates has lasted for many years and many District People's Council meetings without being completely resolved.

The Thanh Chuong District Land Use Rights Registration Office and the People's Committees of communes and towns must proactively arrange enough staff to guide, receive, and appraise the dossiers for granting Land Use Rights Certificates to the people at each time, and must not let the people wait too long when submitting the dossiers; the processing must be done before or on time. If the official working time is delayed due to objective reasons, there must be a letter of apology to the people and a rescheduled time to receive the results. In the process of processing the dossiers, if there are any errors, the responsibilities of the agencies and units that supplement the dossiers must be clearly defined, and guidance and request for supplementation of the dossiers must only be given once.

Lam Thang Hamlet, Ngoc Son Commune is an area where many households have "advanced" money in the hope of having land officials issue land use right certificates. Photo: Nhat Lan

It is absolutely forbidden for officials, civil servants and public employees from the district to the grassroots to cause harassment, trouble, collude with brokers to receive documents and extort money from the people. The District People's Committee conducts inspections and reviews to accurately grasp the localities where officials still harass, provide incomplete guidance to the people and resolutely handle responsibilities according to current regulations.

Strictly and fully implement the One-Stop-Shop and One-Stop-Shop Regulations at the District People's Committee; do not let people have to go to many places many times when applying for land use right certificates.

The District People's Committee has solutions to foster and improve professional capacity, expertise, and public ethics for the team of civil servants of land administration - construction - agriculture and environment in communes and towns; evaluate and classify civil servants objectively and accurately; resolutely remove from the system cadres and civil servants with weak professional expertise, public ethics, attitude, and responsibility to serve the people to regain the people's trust.

Avoid people, receive "brokers"

When asked, Mr. Le Dinh Thanh, Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee, also acknowledged that there is a "broker" situation in society. According to Mr. Thanh, this is a situation of taking advantage of people who are afraid to directly register for land use right certificates to make money.

The Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee analyzed: "The reason why people are hesitant is basically because of lack of knowledge, not learning about the regulations, so the "brokers" come to entice them. Besides, a number of civil servants are irresponsible, causing difficulties, even extorting money, which is also the reason why people go to "brokers" to get land use right certificates."

Mr. Le Dinh Thanh - Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee talked with Nghe An Newspaper reporter about the consequences of red book brokers. Photo: Nhat Lan

Mr. Le Dinh Thanh said that currently the law does not have any regulations prohibiting "brokers", but the district recognizes that "brokers" are taking people's money indiscriminately, besides, leaving behind not small consequences. "When "brokers" take people's money, we do not know. Only when something happens do we hear about it. For example, the land officer of Ngoc Son commune, Hoang Xuan Thanh, only when he learned that this person was transferred to another job, and knew that his red book was not available, did the people report it, the district knew, and the authorities knew" - Mr. Thanh said.

At the same time, Thanh Chuong district raised the question: Do land officials collude with brokers? According to regulations, when citizens come to the commune's One-Stop Center to make a red book, the commune land official will be responsible for checking what the documents include. After checking, they will guide citizens to buy documents, guide them to read the parameters, and write a draft carefully before writing a standard set of documents to submit. However, some commune land officials cannot do it. "There is a situation where people come and are busy with this and that, but when the brokers come, they are received. The district has directed the police to monitor" - Vice Chairman of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee Le Dinh Thanh said.

There were some figures announced at the 5th Session of the Thanh Chuong District People's Council to prove the existence of red book brokers in this district. Specifically, in the first 6 months of 2022, the Thanh Chuong District Land Registration Office Branch received 4,479 records. Through analysis, 1,341 records were submitted by land officials; 2,103 records were submitted by people; the remaining 1,035 records were submitted by authorized persons.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy - Director of the Thanh Chuong District Land Registration Office Branch, among the people authorized to submit 1035 documents, there are many people who provide "services" that society is familiar with calling "brokers". Regarding the "broker" situation, there are many times when it causes difficulties and local congestion due to having to review the documents; the rate of returned documents is very high, up to 57%, showing that there is loose control at the commune level; besides, people certainly have to pay a lot!