Experience from Nghia Dan

(Baonghean) -As a mountainous district, the area of ​​forestry production land is very large, but thanks to good prevention, propaganda, and explanation work to each household and each forest owner, in Nghia Dan, no people were scammed by collecting red books (land use right certificates). When seeing signs of fraud in some other provinces, Nghia Dan District People's Committee also took actions to warn and propagate to the people.

On the afternoon of April 17, under the blazing sun, Mr. Vu Anh Tuan - Deputy Head of the Department of Agriculture of Nghia Dan district still wore a bare head with Mr. Le Van Ngoc - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Nghia Hoi commune and Mr. Tran Trung Duyet, a commune forest ranger, following a dirt road to Mr. Tran Quoc Sam's eucalyptus forest in Khe Bai hamlet to explain and propagate to the forest owner about some new policies of the district.

Holding in his hand Official Dispatch No. 161 dated April 10, 2013 of the District People's Committee on preventing the act of "collecting certificates of forest land use rights with fraudulent acts", Mr. Vu Anh Tuan explained to the forest owner in turn about the effects of the red book of forestry production land, the fraudulent acts of some individuals and organizations when they came to people's houses to persuade forest owners to hand over the red book to run afforestation support projects with cash, etc. After listening attentively for a while, Mr. Tran Quoc Sam honestly said that as forest owners, with economic difficulties, when hearing someone promise to support money for afforestation, people are willing to hand over the red book without thinking much. "Fortunately, the District People's Committee continuously gave timely warnings, otherwise we would be the first to be deceived", Mr. Sam laughed loudly and confided that, in fact, 5-6 years ago, forest owners like him had received warnings like this.

Propaganda for forest owners, prevent fraudulent behavior
in Nghia Hoi commune.

Mr. Vu Anh Tuan said that Nghia Dan has an area of ​​forestry land of up to more than 22,000 hectares spread across 24 communes in the district, most of which have been allocated and granted legal land use rights to forest owners. With such a large area and number of red books, it is very difficult to manage and inspect the illegal activities of some individuals and organizations related to forests. Therefore, as soon as the Provincial People's Committee issued Official Letter No. 1488 dated March 24, 2013 warning about the situation of collecting fraudulent land use right certificates to districts and cities, although there were no signs of any in Nghia Dan, the district committee still promptly took measures to warn the people. Mr. Tuan said that these preventive measures were implemented by the District People's Committee many years ago and brought about very good results.

In 2006, a company came to Nghia Dan to discuss supporting people in a forest planting project, the amount of money they promised was up to 3,000 billion VND, the district only needed to help the company collect certified red books to be disbursed and the project would be implemented. Faced with such a large project, the District People's Committee held a meeting and agreed to accept the project but had to be very cautious. After photocopying and certifying some red books, the district's Agriculture Department staff did not immediately hand them over to the company but took steps to probe, learn and challenge. Faced with such actions, only a very short time later, for some reason the company's representative disappeared without a trace and could not be contacted. Realizing there were unusual signs from the project, the District People's Committee held a meeting and disseminated the information to the functional departments, communes and towns to warn the people.

In 2008 and 2009, when Nghia Dan people were actively planting forests and reforesting bare hills, some organizations and individuals quietly went to each household in Nghia Lac, Nghia Tho, Nghia Yen, Nghia Hoi communes, etc. to persuade them to hand over their red books to receive financial support from the forest planting project. Realizing that there were unusual signs here, on March 12, 2009, when the higher management agencies had not yet issued any guidance documents, Nghia Dan District People's Committee requested the Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and District Police to intervene.

At the same time, it is recommended that agencies and departments in the district inspect and manage subjects with unclear behaviors in the area, strengthen propaganda, explain to people to understand and be alert to fraudulent acts under the guise of forestation projects with foreign capital. At the same time, some other localities in the province have a situation of collecting red books to "run" forestation projects, but after receiving the red books, these companies or individuals who collect them disappear, causing confusion and anxiety among the people. In Nghia Dan, thanks to early preventive measures, no forest owner has been scammed.

After two early and highly effective prevention campaigns, the functional departments have advised the district committee to set up procedures and inspect and manage people's use of forestry land use certificates right from the commune level. Mr. Le Van Ngoc - Vice Chairman of Nghia Hoi Commune People's Committee said that in recent years, whenever people bring red books of forestry production land to do administrative procedures such as notarization and stamping, the commune officials will ask what their purpose is, if any unusual signs are detected, they will immediately report to the district-level agencies to take measures to prevent and handle them.

Nghe An used to be one of the districts where fraudulent behavior in the form of collecting red books to support forest planting projects was rampant. At its peak, the whole province had tens of thousands of forest owners handing over their red books and not knowing who to find to get them back, some officials also took action to assist these scammers. At the beginning of this year, the above phenomenon continued to reappear, agencies such as the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development issued documents requesting the People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities to direct authorities at all levels and local branches to take measures to propagate, promptly prevent, verify, investigate and strictly handle those who collect forest land use right certificates for fraud. The People's Committee of Nghe An province also directed agencies, branches and districts to implement measures to prevent and stop the above phenomenon.

Mr. Vi Van Dinh - Chairman of Nghia Dan District People's Committee shared: The biggest experience that the locality has learned in the process of many years of fighting this new type of crime is high vigilance, attention, and closeness with forest owners to promptly detect early signs and unusual behaviors. More importantly, it is necessary to carefully research individuals, organizations, and forest planting projects planned to be implemented in the area. Once it is determined that these are ghost projects, fraudulent organizations, it is necessary to immediately warn and increase propaganda to every citizen so that they understand and be vigilant.

From the experience in Nghia Dan, it is thought that if every locality is vigilant, takes precautions, and stops the phenomenon from the beginning, has a strict management form, and has timely and regular propaganda measures to the forest owners, then surely, the above form of fraud will be prevented.

Article and photos: Nguyen Khoa