General Phan Anh Minh: '50% of smuggling cases have customs' influence'

The Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Police said that the import and export of goods has the highest potential for corruption, with 50% of smuggling cases in the area "involving customs officers".

At the conference summarizing the work of preventing and combating corruption and waste in 2015 organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee on the afternoon of March 8, as the person who has been involved in the most corruption cases in the city's police force, Major General Phan Anh Minh - Deputy Director of the City Police Department said:Anti-corruption detection can not be said less or more.

"That assessment is emotional and speculative, the nature of corruption cases is latent cases,Which cases are 80% investigated?"It was a success beyond expectations," said Mr. Minh, adding that the subsequent corruption cases often caused greater damage than the previous ones, even much greater, and that the detection rate was very slow. There were acts that occurred 3 years, sometimes 5 or 10 years before being detected, so recovering assets was very difficult and asset dispersion was terrible.

Major General Phan Anh Minh - Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Police. Photo: HC

According to General Minh, the current anti-corruption work has not met the requirements. The Internal Affairs Committee of the City Party Committee asked the City Police to explain why corruption cases discovered by the City Police through reconnaissance are few. "I would like to say frankly that it is not few but non-existent because we have to comply with Directive 15. Most of the subjects causing corruption are party members, and the police are not allowed to organize reconnaissance on party members. Therefore, corruption cases discovered by the City Police must be through other economic cases," Mr. Minh frankly said.

The Deputy Director of the City Police also said,Current solutions are not enough to prevent corruption. Some measures are virtual, such as asset declarations.He cited evidence from his agency where more than 1/3 of officials and civil servants have to declare their assets "but after doing so, they just put it in a drawer and keep it." Whether it is correct or reasonable, no one knows.

"We must gradually make it public and transparent. Management staff must conclude whether the annual declaration is appropriate or not. If there are any inconsistencies, we must request additional information on the origin, income... and even have sanctions and handling," Mr. Minh suggested, saying that asset declaration must be a measure to prevent corruption, and a declaration left in a desk drawer has no meaning at all.

According to General Minh, there are currently5 areas with high risk of negative impacts, with import and export of goods at the top, 50% of smuggling cases in the city are behind the shadow of customs officers. The banking and finance industry is also hiding some potential cases that can be prosecuted, the remaining problem is to evaluate its impact on the financial industry. "N"We currently have signs of financial capital monopolization, possibly monopolizing a part of the management," Mr. Minh assessed.

Although he has handled many cases, Mr. Minh said that there is no need to be proud, because the handling is very slow. Among the types of cases that are returned for investigation or further investigation, corruption cases are at the top. There are even cases that have been further investigated 3-4 times, and the rate of cancellation is also high. "The reason for this situation is that prosecutors at all levels are very cautious and perfectionist when dealing with corrupt people," he explained.

According to Mr. Minh, the city is also stuck with the mechanism of authorizing prosecution in the court and the procuracy. That is, the entire investigation process is done by the central government, other agencies do it and then transfer it to the city for trial. Meanwhile, the case files of those cases are less than 20,000 pages, which is too little, but usually several hundred thousand pages, no trial panel can study them in 2 months to bring them to trial.

"Such slow and long handling has resulted in people's waiting and trust, even people doubt why it took so long to try, tried and then overturned the sentence, or the possibility of the next sentence being lighter than the previous one. There are many cases where the city overturned the sentence, but in my heart I do not believe it, eroding people's trust," Mr. Minh frankly said.

According to VNE