Recovery of corrupt assets 'higher year after year' but still not meeting requirements

At the question and answer session at the 4th Session of the 15th National Assembly, it can be seen that all 4 areas selected for questioning were very accurate and correct, each area was... "hot", although there were issues that were not new. For example, the issue of recovering corrupt assets still achieved a low rate, this is a problem that has been mentioned a lot in the past time whenever dealing with corruption is mentioned, the issue is not new but always hot.

Questioning session at the National Assembly on the morning of November 11.

The recovery of corrupt assets is "higher year after year" but still low. Currently, 40% - 50% of the assets have not been recovered in cases under the supervision of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption and Negative Behavior. This is not a small number because the value of a corruption case can be up to hundreds of billions or thousands of billions of VND. At the recent question and answer session, many National Assembly deputies proposed solutions to effectively recover corrupt assets.

If before 2013, the average rate of recovery of corrupt assets was only about 10% of the total amount to be recovered, then in the period 2013-2020, the average result reached more than 26%. Especially in 2019 and 2020, the results of asset recovery in economic and corruption cases monitored and directed by the Central Steering Committee were equal to 61% of the total amount previously recovered. Including the 10-year period (2012-2022), 61,000 billion VND was recovered, reaching 34.7%, of which, in the cases under the supervision of the Central Steering Committee on anti-corruption and negativity, nearly 50,000 billion VND was recovered, reaching only 41.3%.

Recovery of corrupt assets "year after year is higher than the previous year" but still does not meet requirements.

Some typical cases that have recovered large sums of money in recent times include: Hua Thi Phan case, which has so far recovered more than 12,000 billion VND; Pham Cong Danh case, which has recovered over 5,405 billion VND. Notably, in 2021, the Supreme People's Procuracy attended the online hearing of the Singapore Court to implement the request for judicial assistance in recovering assets in the Phan Sao Nam case, resulting in the recovery of more than 2.6 million USD. This is also the first time Vietnam has collected money for execution of judgments from abroad. Notably, in the AVG case, the authorities recovered 100% of the lost amount (more than 8,000 billion VND).

Most recently, regarding the Viet A case, the Investigation Police Agency promptly blocked, prevented, and seized many accounts and savings books of Phan Quoc Viet and other subjects of Viet A Company worth more than 320 billion VND, 100,000 USD, 20 real estates in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other localities; 8 real estates of Pham Duy Tuyen...

Looking back at the figures for the entire 10-year period (2012-2022), only 61,000 billion VND has been recovered, reaching 34.7%, thus, more than 120,000 billion VND has not been recovered; in which, in the cases under the supervision of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption and Negative Action, nearly 70,000 billion VND still needs to be recovered. This is also one of the challenges and barriers that Vietnam as well as many countries in the world are facing when solving the problem of corruption.

During the question and answer session at the 4th session of the 15th National Assembly, many National Assembly deputies continuously questioned Government Inspector General Doan Hong Phong about solutions to recover corrupt assets.

Government Inspector General Doan Hong Phong spoke to clarify a number of issues discussed by delegates. Photo: National Assembly

Government Inspector General Doan Hong Phong said that recovering corrupt assets is difficult, complicated and has not yet met the requirements. There are 5 main reasons pointed out. First, the law on recovering assets is inadequate and has many problems such as: lack of regulations on enforcement and sanctions after inspection; Second, the person who must execute the judgment or the subject of inspection has no assets or the assets are much lower than the amount to be executed; Third, the time to process and resolve the case is long, far from the time of violation, leading to easy dispersal, concealment, causing loss; Fourth, the legality of the assets is unclear, the subject has fled, causing difficulties in identifying the owner of the assets; Fifth, the coordination between the agencies recovering assets is also limited.

Delegate Pham Nam Tien - National Assembly Delegation of Dak Nong province is concerned about the hundreds of billions of dong in major cases that have not been recovered. Delegate Pham Nam Tien said that currently, 40 - 50% of the corrupt assets in cases under the direction of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption and Negative Practices have not been recovered. This is not a small number because the value of a corruption case can be up to hundreds of billions of dong. Besides, we have only controlled assets in the political system, while assets owned by relatives of corrupt criminals are still a huge gap, difficult to control.

Delegate Pham Nam Tien, National Assembly Delegation of Dak Nong province. Photo: VGP.

In the coming time, in addition to implementing Directive 04 well, delegate Pham Nam Tien suggested that agencies amend and supplement regulations on asset recovery, resolve shortcomings, and ensure consistency for effective recovery. Regarding solutions, it is necessary to improve the recovery mechanism, strengthen post-inspection and enforcement handling, and immediately handle any signs of crime when detecting signs of crime to avoid dissipation and loss of assets. In resolving and recovering assets with foreign elements, international cooperation is needed on this issue.

National Assembly Delegate Ha Sy Dong - National Assembly Delegation of Quang Tri province mentioned that recovering unexplained assets in other people's names is very difficult, there is no effective solution to recover.

Delegate Ha Sy Dong - National Assembly Delegation of Quang Tri province speaks at the National Assembly Hall.

According to the Chief Justice of the Supreme People's Court, Le Minh Tri, this problem has many causes and is very difficult to recover, especially in the absence of a Law on Property Registration, so switching from criminal handling to civil lawsuits will recover more.

Director Le Minh Tri said that priority should be given to economic handling, not to transfer economic cases to criminal cases. This is the viewpoint of the Party and State leaders, not to criminalize economic relations. The Government Inspectorate also thoroughly follows this viewpoint in handling cases. Accordingly, for some cases, after inspection, it is still required to implement the inspection conclusion. For cases that are not clearly classified as criminal or economic, priority should be given to economic handling within the inspection period. However, this only applies for a certain period of time, maybe 1 year to 1.5 years. If after this period it cannot be implemented, it will be transferred to the investigation agency./.

Uong Huyen