Officials reveal large assets: Legitimate or unclear?

The large assets of officials when revealed always attract attention. But which officials are rich through their own sweat and tears, and which officials are rich through ulterior motives is not easy to determine.

What do you think when officials are rich?

In November 2014, after the press reported on the "huge" assets of Mr. Tran Van Truyen, former Government Inspector General, the Central Inspection Committee stepped in to verify and clarify.

In its conclusion on this case, the Central Inspection Committee pointed out that Mr. Truyen had committed a number of shortcomings and violations in implementing housing and land policies. The list of 6 houses and villas owned by Mr. Truyen and his relatives, as listed by the Central Inspection Committee, shocked public opinion. In response to these shortcomings and violations, Mr. Truyen was disciplined with a warning.

Like "Mr. Truyen's villa", many retired officials have been spotted by the press in magnificent villas built for "retirement".

But the villas and the huge assets that can be seen seem to be just the tip of the iceberg. The public has often been left “half-crying, half-laughing” when reading news reports about thieves “visiting” officials’ homes. At that time, the stolen assets were worth tens, hundreds of taels of gold, billions of dong, or tens of thousands of dollars…

The mansions and huge assets that are visible seem to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Recently, public opinion has been stirred up by information about the "huge" stock assets worth up to 600-700 billion VND of Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa and her family at Dien Quang light bulb. In fact, it is not difficult to find these stock figures because they are all publicly available on websites when Dien Quang is a joint stock company listed on the stock exchange for nearly 10 years. Ms. Thoa has also declared these stock assets to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

However, the question arises, although she used to be a business leader but it was a state-owned enterprise and then equitized, where did Ms. Thoa and her family get such a large amount of money to buy shares? And whether or not there were losses in the equitization process here.

However, in the above cases, it is difficult for the public to know which officials are rich through their own sweat and tears, and which officials are rich through illegitimate means. The Minister and Head of the Government Office said that the Prime Minister has assigned 3 ministries and the Government Inspectorate to urgently and strictly implement the General Secretary's direction on verifying the assets of Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa.

Talking to VietNamNet reporter, Major General Le Van Cuong, former Director of the Institute of Strategy and Police Science, Ministry of Public Security, said: "I think we must be alert to distinguish clearly, because otherwise we will be arbitrary, misjudge cadres, harm and wrong cadres; on the contrary, we may also miss corrupt cadres who have infiltrated the Party, causing the Party to degenerate, causing Party members and people to lose faith in the Party. Therefore, we must thoroughly understand the problem from many aspects.

According to Major General Le Van Cuong, first of all, we must see how much assets the official has, although it is difficult to have the most accurate figure. If the assets are in the hundreds of millions or billions, there is no need to question them, but if the assets are in the tens or hundreds of billions of dong, it must be clarified.

Next, once the amount of assets has been determined, a more important thing to do is to consider the origin of those assets. Major General Le Van Cuong said: In the public administration, there are many people with large assets, but those assets are genuine. For example, they have children who are good at business, work, and study abroad, they live frugally, so they are able to accumulate assets worth billions of dong; or in the process of dividing the assets left by their ancestors.

“However, if there are tens or hundreds of billions of dong without finding the legitimate source of these assets, we can immediately think that they come from illegal sources. We are only interested in this type of cadre. Certainly, among the hundreds or thousands of wealthy Party members like this, there is a large number, most of whom are officials, who take advantage of their positions for personal gain. This is certainly true, we must focus on this type of cadre to clarify the source of their assets,” Major General Le Van Cuong shared.

Dr. Do Duc Dinh, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Vietnam Center for Socio-Economic Research, said: In the past, we often thought that leaders were poor. But now everything has changed, so we need to reconsider the way we evaluate. Officials and leaders can be poor, but they can also be rich. They may become leaders after going through a process of legitimate business and trading, so there is nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, now there are officials and officials who are rich in an illegitimate way.

To distinguish between these officials, according to Dr. Do Duc Dinh, there must be an agency with sufficient authority to control whether the official's wealth is legitimate or not. US President Donald Trump is a billionaire, he did business for decades before entering politics and although he was "scrutinized" during the election process, thanks to the transparent mechanism and supervision, he can easily explain the origin of his assets.

Asset declaration: Necessary but sufficient?

The large assets of officials when revealed always attract attention.

In fact, in Vietnam, the inspection and monitoring of assets of officials and leaders has been implemented, for example, asset declaration. However, the reliability of those declarations is still a question mark.

According to the Government’s report on anti-corruption in 2015, the number of people required to declare their assets and income was over one million, but only five people were found to be dishonest. According to the Government’s anti-corruption report in 2016, out of 1 million declarations, authorities verified 414 people but no violations were found.

Major General Le Van Cuong frankly commented: Asset declaration is correct, positive, and integrated with the civilization of mankind. Civilized countries in the world can do this and they can do it, do it well. But the difference between us and other countries is the implementation process. People do it in many ways, from many perspectives, so this is effective. We have not achieved what we wanted, so we need to review it.

Sharing with VietNamNet reporter, Mr. Nguyen Ba Thuyen, former Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Lam Dong province, member of the Law Committee of the 13th National Assembly, said: There are people who are legitimately rich, but there are also officials who are abnormally rich. Because we cannot manage the origin of assets, many people take advantage of that to get rich.

When he was a National Assembly delegate, Mr. Nguyen Ba Thuyen had to petition many times to require declaration of assets of both adult children and family members. "The law only requires minors to declare, so officials' assets are now all put in the names of their adult children," said Mr. Thuyen. In addition, according to Mr. Thuyen, there should be regulations on the use of assets through accounts, because as it is now, it is very difficult to check the origin of assets.

“There must be a regulation that all money spent must go through an account, not cash, so that even if you are corrupt or have “black” money, you cannot spend it. Only then will it be transparent and clear. Now we can spend as much as we want, money earned honestly as well as money earned illegally, black and white are mixed together like that, making it difficult to fight corruption,” Mr. Nguyen Ba Thuyen suggested.

According to Vietnamnet