Vinh City strictly handles officials and party members who violate regulations

(Baonghean) -"Handling errant cadres and party members is for oneself, aiming to improve the quality of the entire party organization, therefore, even if the emulation title is downgraded, one must still be determined to do it", that is the affirmation of comrade Vo Viet Thanh - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Secretary of Vinh City Party Committee...

Losing cadres due to lack of collective struggle

Since the beginning of 2013, the Party Committees and Inspection Committees at all levels of Vinh City have disciplined 44 Party members, of which 26 were reprimanded, 10 were warned, 5 were expelled, and 3 were leaders who were removed from office. The disciplined Party members all showed signs of degradation in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle to varying degrees.

Vinh City Inspection Committee checks documents. Photo: Sy Minh

A typical case is the case of Party Secretary, Chairman of Vinh Tan Ward People's Council Nguyen Thanh Tuan. Born in 1977, graduated from high school without a job, Tuan enthusiastically participated in social activities and was elected Secretary of the Cong Hoa Hamlet Youth Union (formerly Vinh Tan Commune), then elected to the Executive Committee, Standing Committee of the Commune Youth Union. In 2008, when Vinh Tan Commune was upgraded to a ward, Tuan was elected Secretary of the Ward Youth Union, Tuan's activities began to stand out from then on. After being sent to study at the University of Business Administration (in-service), Tuan was elected to the Executive Committee, Standing Committee of the Party Committee, and assigned to the task of Standing Committee of the Ward Party Committee. In 2010, the Ward Party Congress elected Nguyen Thanh Tuan as Secretary, then elected Chairman of the Ward People's Council. In the role of Party Secretary and Chairman of the Ward People's Council, Nguyen Thanh Tuan demonstrated himself to be a capable cadre, leading the Vinh Tan movement to develop comprehensively, continuously for 4 years (2009-2012) the Party Committee achieved the title of Strong and Clean, of which 2 years achieved the title of Typical Strong and Clean. From a poor commune, Vinh Tan became one of the fastest growing wards of the city; the Kindergarten and the Ward Health Station met national standards; people's lives were improved and enhanced. However, the trust and hope of the Party Committee and people of Vinh Tan were shattered. On July 24, 2013, the Standing Committee of Vinh City Party Committee issued Decision No. 647/QD-Th.U to discipline Nguyen Thanh Tuan by removing him from the position of Party Secretary of the Ward and expelling him from the Party, accordingly, the positions of Chairman of the Ward People's Council and member of the City People's Council were also dismissed.

Before Nguyen Thanh Tuan was disciplined, there were no complaints or denunciations, and no party committee of Vinh Tan ward and party members in the party committee reported that Nguyen Thanh Tuan had any violations or shortcomings. Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee Nguyen Hoai An said: It was not until the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee discussed including Nguyen Thanh Tuan in the planning of the City Party Committee Executive Committee for the next term that information was revealed that Tuan had borrowed large sums of money from many people and was unable to repay. The news of Tuan's debt default caused public outrage, so the City Party Committee had to stop the planning and establish an inspection and handling team. According to the conclusion of the Vinh City Party Committee's Inspection Commission, Party Secretary Nguyen Thanh Tuan had major violations: not seriously directing subordinates to implement the Party Committee's resolutions; dishonestly reporting on the implementation of Party member assessment and classification and the implementation of Resolution 4 of the Central Committee; Using the name of the Party Secretary and Chairman of the People's Council of the ward to borrow money from a number of individuals and groups, and when the payment was due, he was unable to repay, causing the reputation of the leader and the Party Committee of the ward to be damaged. In all the loan documents, Tuan claimed to be the Party Secretary and Chairman of the People's Council of Vinh Tan ward. With the trick of taking advantage of subordinates and acquaintances to borrow money, when he defaulted on the debt, Tuan was not denounced or complained about. Not only was Nguyen Thanh Tuan expelled and removed from office, but the Party Committee of Vinh Tan ward was disciplined with a reprimand.

When we returned to work in Vinh Tan, we asked the responsible cadres: why did the Party Secretary commit such a mistake but the collective did not fight and criticize? Many people answered the same, "We really did not know", some expressed their opinion: if they knew, it would be difficult for the subordinates to "tell" their superiors. In fact, it is not that the Vinh Tan ward leadership did not know about Nguyen Thanh Tuan's wrongdoings. The evidence is that when Tuan wrote a loan paper from Vinh Tan Agricultural Cooperative with the reason of paying salaries to the ward's cadres and civil servants, the ward People's Committee Chairman signed and confirmed. Fortunately, someone intervened so this "transaction" did not happen. It is clear that Vinh Tan lost cadres because the collective was "unified" in one direction, lacking the spirit of fighting and criticizing, allowing the leader to seriously degrade. Vice Chairman of Vinh Tan Ward People's Committee Nguyen Hoang Manh confided: "Despite losing cadres, the Vinh Tan movement, no matter how difficult it is, will overcome it, but the biggest loss that we don't know when it will be compensated for is the loss of people's trust. This is a lesson for the Party Committee."

Consequences of violating state regulations

According to the Inspection Conclusion No. 23/KL-UBND dated October 16, 2013 of Vinh City People's Committee on "Management and use of finance at the Railway Station Market Management Board", during his time as Head of the Market Management Board (2011 - 2013), Mr. Le Van Tien (born in 1960) violated the principles of financial management with the amount of money to be recovered being 220 million VND. Although Mr. Tien did not embezzle personally and the amount of money to be recovered was not large, the management and operation lacked democracy, was not transparent, was not fair, causing frustration for business households in the market. Mr. Tien did many things that violated the State's regulations such as: allowing the trade union to collect fees for pens and lottery tickets to create operating funds, creating records to collect fees from stalls at lower prices than the prescribed level (due to personal relationships), allowing the fee collection department to raise the street vendor fee higher than the prescribed level, and collecting electricity fees from businesses at the market higher than the current price. Under Mr. Tien's direction, the market management board also agreed to collect fees when performing procedures for renting business premises without proper authority, and some fee collections did not use receipts issued by the financial sector.

When he learned that the Ga Market Management Board needed a deputy director, Mr. Le Van Minh (born in 1964), former director of a factory of Thanh Nghe Tinh Food Company, submitted an application for this position. Due to business losses, he was forced to resign by the company to collect debts, but in his application he still stated that he was working as the director of the factory, which was confirmed by Thanh-Nghe-Tinh Food Company. Mr. Tien did not verify but still signed a request to the Vinh City People's Committee to accept Mr. Le Van Minh as Deputy Director of the Ga Market Management Board from January 2013. When the complaint was received, after checking, it was found that Mr. Minh had falsified his application, the City Party Committee issued a decision to remove him from the position of deputy secretary of the Party cell and assigned the Vinh City People's Committee to carry out the procedures for his dismissal according to the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants. The inspection results showed that Mr. Tien had violated the principle of democratic centralism, violated the State's regulations, and caused resentment among business households in the Ga Market. The Standing Committee of Vinh City Party Committee issued Decision No. 766/QD-Th.U dated November 26, 2013 to discipline and remove the Party cell secretary and assigned the Vinh City People's Committee to discipline and remove Mr. Le Van Tien from the position of Head of the Railway Station Market Management Board. Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee Nguyen Hoai An commented: "Comrade Tien not only violated the principles of financial management but also had a major shortcoming of not being able to build collective solidarity, poor management skills and poor mass mobilization ability, leading to the occurrence of hot spots."

In the case of Mr. Nguyen Van Ha (born in 1961), Director of the Vinh City Social Labor Education Center, the violation of State regulations is more serious. According to Inspection Conclusion No. 22/KL-UBND dated September 26, 2013 of the Vinh City People's Committee on "Management and use of finance at the unit, financial regime for students at the Vinh City Social Labor Education Center", Mr. Nguyen Van Ha violated the principles of financial management with the amount of money to be recovered being 216.5 million VND. As the Vinh City Social Labor Education Center, the unit is funded by the State to perform the tasks of drug addiction treatment, vocational training, career guidance, and organizing labor therapy for drug addicts. As director, Mr. Nguyen Van Ha tried to cut down on the trainees' allowances to spend on the unit such as: Paying for meals for trainees unfairly, declaring an increase in the price of uniforms for trainees to get the difference, overstating the allowance for staff on duty to serve the community to get money to the union fund to settle the Tet allowance for staff, workers and employees, declaring an increase in the price of materials and costs for vocational training classes for trainees to get the difference, and having no regulations on the use of trainees' production labor money. From the above violations, the Standing Committee of Vinh City Party Committee issued Decision No. 765/QD-Th.U dated November 26, 2023 to discipline Nguyen Van Ha by removing him from the position of Party cell secretary and assigning the City People's Committee to remove him from the position of director of the Center for Social Labor Education.

In addition to violating financial management principles, Mr. Nguyen Van Ha also arbitrarily allowed drug addicts to visit their families, which was not in accordance with the law. For that action, Mr. Nguyen Van Ha was prosecuted by Vinh City Police.

Lessons on inspection and supervision

The Vinh City Party Committee's determination to handle erring cadres and party members demonstrates its determination to continue implementing Resolution 4 of the Central Committee (11th tenure) to achieve better results, which has been highly supported by public opinion, cadres, party members and the people. However, it also reveals the weaknesses of some grassroots party organizations. In the report summarizing the Party building work in 2013, the City Party Committee's Organizing Committee frankly pointed out: "The leadership role and implementation of the principles of organizing party activities of some grassroots party organizations are not good; the content, form and quality of party activities are generally limited; the management of cadres and party members of some grassroots party organizations is still lax, allowing cadres and party members to violate discipline, affecting the prestige of the Party and the government".

In 2013, the Vinh City Party Committee did not achieve the title of strong party committee for two main reasons: there were many cases of collective complaints from the people and many cadres and party members were disciplined. Secretary of the City Party Committee Vo Viet Thanh clearly stated his point of view: “Handling errant cadres and party members is to do it for oneself in order to improve the quality of the entire Party Committee, so even if the emulation title is downgraded, one must still be determined to do it. But the most important thing is to draw lessons from experience in personnel work; especially to strengthen the inspection and supervision of party members at the grassroots level to avoid violations; if cadres and party members commit violations and then superiors come to inspect and handle them, that is the last resort.”

According to the report of the City Party Committee's Inspection Commission, among the 44 party members disciplined, there was 1 case of political violations, 2 cases of violations of the principle of democratic centralism, 4 cases of lack of responsibility, 29 cases of violations in implementing the Party's resolutions and directives, and the State's policies and laws (including 23 party members who were reprimanded for having a third child), and 7 cases of violations of other contents. Allowing many party members to violate such a wide range of contents clearly shows that the inspection and supervision work at grassroots party organizations is being lax. Head of the Mass Mobilization Commission Tran Viet Lap, former Secretary of the Vinh Tan Ward Party Committee, commented: "Every year, party inspection work as well as state inspection work are carried out regularly and periodically, but violations like in Vinh Tan Ward still occur, proving that the inspection and supervision work has not met requirements."

According to Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee Nguyen Hoai An, since the implementation of Resolution 4 of the Central Committee, the work of cadres in Vinh City has been rectified, done very closely and methodically; from introducing, appointing, promoting, transferring cadres to commenting and evaluating cadres to put into planning, all have regulations and are passed through the collective very democratically. When sending cadres to the grassroots, the city's collective leadership considers very carefully. But in terms of leadership at the unit, partly because the cadres lack the spirit of training and striving, and partly because the Party organization there is lax in inspection and supervision, regrettable violations occur.

Regarding disciplinary action against erring cadres and party members, Head of the City Party Committee's Inspection Commission Tran Thi Cam Tu clearly stated her point of view: "Knowing that strict disciplinary action will not only cause pain to the individual but also cause the collective to lose cadres, but when the leader violates the party member's qualifications, degrades morality and lifestyle, it must be resolutely dealt with."

The root cause of the above violations is that the grassroots party organizations do not promote their leadership role to inspect and supervise party members, especially party members who are leaders. Why did the Secretary of the Vinh Tan Ward Party Committee degenerate to such a serious extent but the Party Committee did not have any opinion, until public opinion "broke out" and the City Party Committee's Inspection Commission stepped in to handle it? Why did the Head of the Ga Market Management Board commit such wrongdoings but the Party Committee there did not take measures to prevent it, until the people of Ga Market were upset and went to the city to collectively react, forcing the City Party Committee to direct a solution? Why did the Director of the Vinh City Social Labor Education Center violate the law to the point of being prosecuted but the Party Committee there did not have any opinion? Obviously, the work of inspecting and supervising party members is lax right at the grassroots party organizations where party members live. This situation has put the City Party Committee's Inspection Commission in a state of always having to chase after cases of cadres and party members who have committed violations to handle; No matter how severely the punishment is, it will still leave long-term consequences. This is the most profound lesson that the Vinh City Party Committee leadership needs to seriously absorb in order to direct grassroots party organizations to do a good job of inspecting and supervising party members.

Tran Hong Co