Fraud busters to review key projects

The team, comprised of officials from the Government Inspectorate and the Ministries of Planning and Investment, Finance and Construction will focus its investigations on transport and irrigation projects utilising both domestic capital and international aid money.
“Ministers and chairmen of provincial people’s Committees… when assigned to manage and use state assets and capital, do not fulfill their obligations and are lax in management. Consequently a serious amount of state assets and capital are wasted, bringing about negative public opinion,” the prime-ministerial directive read.
The team is required to report the results of its investigation to the Prime Minister by the end of the year. However, observers have noted that the investigation would be a huge undertaking as the number of projects in Group A alone (those with capital of over $40 million) are numerous. Khai’s direction, which excluded the Ministry of Transport (MoT) from the investigatory team, is a prompt response to the ongoing national scandal surrounding the MoT’s Project Management Unit 18 (PMU 18).
The PMU 18 case shocked the nation a month ago, when police discovered that the unit’s director, Bui Tien Dung, had bet a record sum of $7m on the English and Spanish premier leagues.
PMU 18 is assigned to manage nearly VND33,000 billion (approximately $2 billion) drawn from the State budget and official development assistance for the construction of Vietnam’s major infrastructure projects.
The ministry’s deputy standing minister, Nguyen Viet Tien, a former director of PMU 18, was suspended by the Prime Minister for his alleged involvement in the case. Tien was required to be present for police questioning police last week.

“Heads of state agencies must take responsibility and be suspended from their posts if corruption occurs within their agencies. This is the opinion of the Prime Minister,” prime ministerial spokesperson Nguyen Kinh Quoc said after the government regular meeting.

“The Prime Minister has been very serious in his fight against corruption and waste.”

The Prime Minister, however, admitted to local press on the sidelines of last year’s National Assembly meeting that it was not easy for him to suspend juniors members of his government.

In recent years, only the former minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Huy Ngo has stepped down of his own accord, following allegations that he was connected to the case of La Thi Kim Oanh, who misappropriated tens of billions of dong.




No. 755/April 3-9, 2006