Anti-corruption issues to hang over Congress

The Vietnam Communist Party’s 10th Congress is set to be the talk of the nation over the next week

The issue has gained momentum as the Party works to fortify its leadership amid flagging efforts to control corruption and the fallout of a recent multi-million dollar embezzlement scandal.
“Is anti-corruption a top priority in the agenda? I think it is not,” said Phan Dien, a member of the Politburo and standing member of the Party Central Committee Secretariat.
Dien stressed that the eight-day congress, set to close on April 25, will focus on identifying strategic guidelines for reform across the board to help the country develop faster. Enhancing national solidarity will be also a main theme.
Yet, Dien said that the latest efforts to battle corruption would still be scrutinised by 1,178 Party members selected by Party cells at all levels.
“Anti-corruption is one of the very important topics,” he told a press conference in Hanoi last week, underlining that bureaucracy, corruption and waste remained a threat to the country’s reform and development.
“Bureaucracy, corruption and wastefulness are even a threat to our state regime,” he emphasised.
The Party’s 9th Congress has indicated corruption as one of the major threats to national development and laid out measures to combat it, and Dien said that “positive results have been achieved in terms of warning, preventing and controlling its spread.”
But such results, he added, are not up to the people’s expectations and are not “responding to the reality as well.”
“There have not been radical changes in this facet [of anti-corruption],” he observed, acknowledging that bureaucracy, corruption and waste still cause great concerns among the people.
In recent weeks, the people have asked more questions of several
government and Party officials in relation to the multi-million-dollar scandal in the Ministry of Transport’s Project Management Unit 18 (PMU18).
The case, in which PMU18’s general director embezzled several million dollars from the state to bet on football matches, has prompted the Minister of Transport to resign and resulted in the temporary detention of a deputy minister. Several other officials are under questioning.
The detained deputy minister is believed by investigators to have paid for his post at the ministry.
He is also suspected of having paid to be recommended by the ministry’s party cell for a seat on the 10th Party Congress Central Committee. The Central Committee has since voted to remove him from the election list.
“I hope there have not been any cases of paying for a position in the Central Committee. Any people detected to have won a seat that way will be ousted by the Central Committee,” said Phan Dien.
Dien also said Central Committee members would not discuss specifics of the PMU18 case in its preparatory meeting for the 10th Congress, but agreed that it provides “valuable lessons and experiences for strengthening the Party and fighting corruption.”
Delegates to the upcoming congress expect to elect a central committee consisting of 160 permanent and 25 alternate members, who will then nominate a poliburo of 15 to 17 people. The current Central Committee comprises 146 members with a politburo of 14.
The new central committee, with “certainly higher qualifications” according to Dien, will discuss a political report that will serve as a guide for national development and reform in the next five years.
The draft report has been publicised for public opinion and revised based on “thousands of wise ideas” contributed by readers.
The 1,178 delegates to the 10th Congress, 1.8 per cent of them representing business interests, will also discuss whether party members will be allowed to own private companies.
The congress will also review implementation of resolutions from the 9th Congress’ as well as socio-economic development over the past five years.



No. 757/April 17-23, 2006