Why is the General Secretary concerned about the "shame" among cadres and party members?

At the recent National Conference on Anti-Corruption, the General Secretary emphasized that it is necessary to build awareness of self-criticism, condemnation, and fight against corruption and waste; respect integrity, honor, and feel ashamed when one's relatives or themselves are corrupt and wasteful among cadres, party members, civil servants, and public employees.

Previously, at the 7th Central Conference, the General Secretary frankly pointed out the situation where some leaders and managers, including strategic-level officials, had qualities that were not up to the task. The head of our Party also wondered whether, in evaluating and appointing officials, should we pay special attention to qualities or abilities or both?

It is not by chance that the General Secretary raised such a question in the current situation. Because in the recent past, a series of cadres have been disciplined, including strategic cadres; a series of major cases have been brought to trial, ultimately, the cause is also from moral degradation, from the lack of "shame" of individuals.

“Petty corruption” occurs in many places, especially in government agencies, and takes many forms. It is a state of harassment and inconvenience for people and businesses in handling work. It is a state of having to have envelopes, bribes, and suggestions for everything.

During a meeting with voters in Tay Ho district (Hanoi), the General Secretary pointed out that there is not only big corruption, but also "petty corruption" like scabies, very itchy and uncomfortable, and at the same time directed and resolutely removed from the Party and State apparatus corrupt and corrupt officials.

Shameless from showing off and formality. Resolution 4 of the 12th Central Committee also "named and shamed" 27 manifestations of moral degradation of officials. It clearly pointed out the state of ambition for power, failure to comply with the organization's assignment, finding every way to mobilize, influence, and gain votes and votes of confidence for individuals in an unhealthy way. Suffering from the disease of "achievements", being greedy for fame, showing off, hiding shortcomings, exaggerating achievements, "polishing" one's name; liking to be exalted and praised; "running for achievements", "running for rewards", "running for titles"...

The Trinh Xuan Thanh case is a typical example of degradation, not knowing "shame" when he constantly chases for achievements, chases for rewards, likes to show off differently from others, travels in a luxury car worth 5.7 billion with fake license plates from the people's sweat and tears...

Not knowing “shame” in declaring assets. According to the Government Inspectorate, out of 1 million people required to declare assets and income, only 4 people were found to be dishonest. These figures show that the current asset declaration is just a formality, people just declare, no one supervises or checks, and violations are only discovered when the inspection agency gets involved.

There have been cases of officials who own mansions. When the inspection agency got involved, they explained that their assets were obtained from selling brooms or raising pigs. Some explained that they were given to them by their adoptive mothers or younger siblings. There have been cases of officials declaring assets worth no more than 50 million VND, but in reality their husbands, wives, children or relatives own huge amounts of assets. And there have also been a few cases of high-ranking officials being disciplined for violating asset declaration regulations. This situation also stems from the declarant’s lack of honesty and lack of “shame”.

No shame in criticism and self-criticism. People take advantage of meetings to turn criticism and self-criticism into “praise” criticism, criticizing each other less, flattering each other more to include themselves. Or many people are afraid to criticize others because they are afraid of being persecuted, afraid of affecting their own interests.

Realizing this situation, many Party Resolutions and most recently the 4th Central Resolution have also pointed out that self-criticism and criticism in many places are just formalities, there is still a state of deference, avoidance, and fear of conflict; at the same time, we are determined to find solutions to end this situation.

Shameless when faced with material temptations. Many people have not hesitated to accept bribes of billions of dong, houses, luxury cars… only to realize when they are disciplined or brought to court that they have “given” each other tens of billions of dong, even hundreds of billions of dong, all of the people’s hard-earned money, as if nothing had happened.

Many cases have been and are being brought to trial such as the "big case" of receiving bribes at the Hanoi urban railway project, the Duong Chi Dung case, the case of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) losing 800 billion VND... only to see that the amount of money people "bribe" each other is up to tens of billions, even hundreds of billions of VND.

Also because of their lack of shame, many people are willing to cover up for each other, “group interests”, and handle violating officials in a formal way, even some violating officials are “disciplined” by being transferred to a higher position. Recently, many cases of officials who assisted, condone, and covered up for wrongdoing officials have been considered for disciplinary action by the Central Inspection Commission and the Politburo.

During his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh once said that cadres must have both virtue and talent. If one has virtue but no talent, it will be difficult to do anything, but if one has talent but no virtue, one cannot do anything. The degradation of morality and lifestyle is the most important manifestation leading to degeneration.

Therefore, once a cadre has morally degraded and is not promptly prevented and handled, all efforts to have a clean, strong, and non-corruption government apparatus are impossible./.