Strengthening control of assets and income to prevent and combat corruption

Asset and income control is one of the important components in building comprehensive solutions.anti-corruption; contribute to enhancing the transparency of the state apparatus, the integrity of cadres, civil servants, and people with positions and powers; at the same time, help state management agencies monitor and prevent wrongdoings of cadres and civil servants, prevent and minimize the risk of illegal enrichment...

In Nghe An, on November 3, 2023, the Provincial People's Committee issued Plan No. 840/KH-UBND to implement the project "Building a National Database on Asset and Income Control". The purpose is to implement the Law on Anti-Corruption 2018, specify and organize the implementation of tasks according to Decision 390/QD-TTg dated March 28, 2022 of the Prime Minister on approving the Project "Building a National Database on Asset and Income Control" and Plan No. 2033/KH-TTCP dated September 8, 2023 of the Government Inspectorate to implement the Project "Building a National Database on Asset and Income Control".

At this conference, representatives of many ministries, branches and some localities also pointed out the shortcomings and limitations in controlling the assets and income of officials and civil servants. In particular, the control measures and subjects of control are still limited. In fact, because the payment conditions in our country are mainly in cash, the phenomenon of tax evasion and failure to voluntarily declare and pay taxes still occurs frequently.

The annual declaration of assets and housing of cadres and civil servants is still a formality; income in cash has not received due attention, so it is almost not raised. Cadres and civil servants declare and submit to the management agency, the agency managing cadres and civil servants only has the task of keeping records without a mechanism for explanation, inspection, and verification to ensure transparent and honest asset declaration. There is also a situation of asking relatives to stand in the name of valuable assets; difficulties in verifying assets at home...

In particular, due to the lack of sanctions for cases of fraudulent behavior, the accuracy and honesty of the declaration documents cannot be guaranteed...

In addition, the level of management and income control of state agencies is still limited, the connection between functional agencies in income control is still low, so the situation of taking advantage of positions and powers for personal gain is still common. Currently, there are no legal regulations on acts and crimes of illegal enrichment. Along with that, the regulations on what party members are not allowed to do, declaring assets, prohibiting the use of public funds as gifts still have some loose contents, are not feasible and lack sanctions to handle violations...

At the conference, some large provinces and cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City,... pointed out the shortcomings, randomly selecting people to be verified by drawing lots or using computer software, will cause the number of people having to declare to be very large, while the number of officials directly responsible for anti-corruption work is limited. Some opinions also requested to clarify the honesty of the declaration, the transparency of declared assets... There needs to be specific instructions, decentralization for agencies and units with a large number of people having to declare assets and income, to avoid overlap.

From the opinions and suggestions of ministries, branches and localities, the representative of the Government Inspector General said that he will synthesize and make recommendations to higher levels so that timely adjustments and supplements can be made, contributing to preventing, detecting and stopping corruption, serving the work of cadres, preventing the dissipation of corrupt assets, recovering corrupt assets...